Rain, rain and more rain is making gardening interesting.

I do not remember when we have had so much rain and so many days in a row. It has already been a cooler than normal spring. The plus side is that in order to grow tomatoes in the greenhouse under low winter light without blasting them with lights, I ordered seeds for plants usually grown in Canada of all places. The

tomatoes are called Scotia and have out performed any expectation I had of them. They have thrived in the cool wet spring and laid on a generous crop of tomatoes--larger than I expected too. They will play out as it gets hot but we have been having BLTs and sliced tomatoes! Some of the other varieties are not faring as well although they are loaded with large tomatoes, the celebrity and lemony boy are both in one of the huglekulture beds and covered with large green tomatoes but few blooms. I was kind of hoping for a second and third crop before pulling them. The juliet is thriving out back and does have blooms and new fruit setting daily. The peppers are doing fantastically--loving the extra water and full of fruit on the jalepenos and some setting on the golden pepper. The ones in the greenhouse are loaded with blooms and smaller fruit, even the ghost pepper. 

I have finally pulled almost all the beets, all 400+ of them and found a much better way to use the greens. We love beets -- spiced beets, roasted beets, beets in our smoothies but the greens not so much. I decided to try making crackers from them and we are eating them by the  trayful!! Super healthy and low cal to boot. I have used the beet greens, carrot tops, collard greens, kale and kohl rabi greens in addition to onion and leek greens in these. With or without topping they are a great way to use the greens. I am even using them with an egg as binder to make a pizza crust. Lemonade from lemons so to speak.

Cucumber plants are going crazy and blooming like wild so hoping to get more than a handful. Carrots were not a great producer this year and the special purple ones were a total flop. Will try again in the fall. 

Starting your plants from seed or rooting and making them thrive

I love doing this starting my little plants from seeds and have played with a lot of ways to do it and have had multiple chances to see how it is done on a much larger scale at the Johnson backyard garden. Soil and moisture are two of the most important factors in the process after the quality of the seeds. Then the amount of effort to keep them going and not damp off before the get big enough to transplant is another big issue. Seeds should be kept dry and cool for best chance at germination. Ideal germination temperatures are different depending on the plant: germination chart  This site endorses pre-sprouting but has a great chart on the #of days to germinate at which temperatures: pre-sprouting and temps .
My best method to date involves a bit of combining of methods.

1. I use an unfertilized seeding soil well moistened for all seeds but I use a big enough container to put good lightly fertilized potting soil in the wells first and dampen well. I then put in about 1/2-3/4" of the well moistened seed soil and pat it down. 
2. For littler seeds I scratch the surface and drop on 1-2 seeds per sector. For larger ones I add enough seeding soil to cover the seed the required amount--the depth of 1 seed. 
3. I water the whole tray when done seeding and set on a tray to catch the moisture and cover with bubble wrap or in a plastic bag or under a clear dome and set in a warm enough place to germinate the seed. 
4. I watch the flats and wait for the seed to pop out a leaf. I do not water from the top as a general rule. Soaking from the bottom works better and makes for stronger longer roots. 
5. I generally use a misting of fish oil in water on the seedlings weekly as they grow and most of them get blown on to strengthen their stems. You can use a small fan as well. You can also use weak compost tea.
6. Once they are up and have at least a set of leaves I move them to the greenhouse most of the year. It is lightly shaded part of the day and gives them better air circulation but does increase their water consumption.
7. I try to get plants up to several leaves before they go to the garden. I lose fewer this way and have room to grow them and up-pot them when needed. 

Growing herbs and tomatoes from rooting a cutting takes a bit of planing and has been hit and miss for me this year. Most herbs do well if you pinch off a length of a growing tip and drop the stem in either wet sand or just water and wait for roots to appear. Once they have roots move to wet potting soil and decrease watering to bottom only. Tomatoes can be rooted by breaking off suckers from the plant and dropping them into a cup of water. I take a piece about 6" long and strip off the leaves at the bottom if there are any. I use rainwater or purified water for this.  In a couple of weeks the roots will be big enough to transplant into a pot then the garden. Sweet potatoes can be done this way as well. 

Surviving the freezing weather one blanket at a time

 This has been a really hard cold winter here in central Texas. For the second time in a month our temperatures will fall into the low 20s. I have been out covering up the plants that are supposed to tolerate a little bit of frost. Cauliflower unfortunately does not like to be frozen and apparently neither does arugula. As you can see from one of the pictures the plants did live through the phrase but they sure look battered. It also slowed down the production of the broccoli that was just starting to make nice heads. The cauliflower has been really stunted and I lost two of the cheddar hollow flower

Tomato experiment this year

I am working on a new watering scheme for the tomatoes this year. First I got seeds from the Sustainable food center that are recommended for our area (I did check the A&M list too) and started Early Girl, Brandywine, San Marzano, and Supersweet 100s for this year. I also started a Thai pink egg that did well last year and a black cherry that did well for others. I also got 2 Jaune Flammee from the SJC.

Transplanting was tricky with the weather but they got up potted several times and went into the ground in mid-March. I set gallon milk jugs near each one inverted so I can give them a gallon of water without directing it to the surrounding soil. Calculations are that the plants need 2-4 gallons/week depending on the heat. This also is allowing for direct application of fertilizer without hitting the leaves.

On the advise of many tomato growers, I am nipping all the suckers this year. God they sprout fast and often. I have rooted several and thrown a lot of them away. Pinching them off below bloom level sounds like a great idea in theory--in practice it takes a lot of vigilance but the plants are full of blooms and fruit at this point about 7 weeks after transplant. I did cage all of them so they may not get as much air as they might if I only staked them. We will see. Although we have had a very cool spring it looks like things will heat up soon so now every plant will need some mulch around the jugs.

Creating an herb garden to accent the yard

 We have been talking for a year about doing some kind of plantings around the oak tree at the corner of our front yard but have spent way more time on the other beds. I did put stones around the tree and put down weed cloth topped with grass clippings and some weedy grasses. Last weekend we finally put down a load of compost/mulch and got it spread out. Suddenly it was plain that if I grouped all the herbs there that they would help water the tree and get a bit of protection from the blazing sun and heat we started getting this week. 

I wound up moving the plant stand too so it would be closer and open up the path area to the chairs a bit more. This may be our permanent grouping or we may move things around a bit more. I'd like to pot a couple of the coleus to get a bit more color in the area but need to monitor the sun a bit more yet for that.  I am getting lots of comments from people walking by on the garden and the mix of flowers and vegetables. The bamboo teepee is attracting a bit of attention now that the malabar spinach is climbing well.