Friday, April 3, 2009

Of Moles and Miracle-Gro

Just thought I would take a minute to let y'all know what's coming up in our garden.

So far, we've transplanted tomatoes, 26 total, about 8 different kinds. My wife loves to try different heirloom types, but we're limited in what we can find around here because of our location. Note to self--next year, order seeds early and try to start them in the house around mid-February. Here are the kinds we have so far:
  • Health Kick Roma (supposed to be higher in lycopene by 50%)
  • Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes
  • Golden Jubilee full-sized yellow tomatoes
  • Golden Pear tomatoes (the little yellow ones)
  • Big Beef beefsteak
  • Regular Roma tomatoes
  • Red Grape tomatoes
  • Early Girl slicing tomatoes
  • Best Boy slicing tomatoes

The transplanted peppers are also looking happy in their new home--we have sweet banana, big green bell, and red bell.

Both types of sweet corn came up, but the Chubby Checker appears not to have germinated yet. So we have about 3 half-rows to fill with something else.

Also a dud are the blackeyed peas and the purple-hull peas. Not sure what's the deal with those, but we'll give them another week and then give up and replant those two rows with something else.

Mustard greens have sprouted, as have the radishes, yellow squash, zucchini, okra, pattypan squash, acorn squash, dragon tongue beans, Ford Hook lima beans, and both the pole and bush green beans. We're also seeing a few of the watermelon seeds sprouting, and both types of cukes. And the marigolds and sunflowers that the kids planted are also coming up.

No word yet from the gourds, pumpkins, or cantaloupes. Not sure if they take longer to germinate or not.

We sprinkled some Miracle-Gro on the transplants and on the beans that had at least one set of true leaves, and on the corn. We'll see if that helps. Plans are in the works to do some fertilizing in a week or so, with some time-release fertilizer pellets.

Also, we have MOLES. I don't think I've ever even seen a mole. My mother-in-law says we need to get "peanuts" from the feed store to kill them off. So we'll be doing that fairly quickly too.

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