Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Still waiting for Spring

I'll spare the pictures of the snow on the ground. I just don't have the heart to take another photo of it.  We got about 10 inches of snow for April Fool's Day, much of it has gone but the ground is still 90% covered. It was cold Saturday and Sunday was chilly but sunny.  Today it is warmer, but cloudy and we are told it should rain the next two nights and be warmer- possible 60's toward midweek.
Last year had such an early spring that this year i'm not sure what to make of the weather. I hope we end up having a warm summer or this will not be a good garden year.

My tomato seeds are beginning to pop up and so far it looks like good germination.



poor dead Cherokee Purple


Except for the Banana Legs tomatoes.  This looks like signs of old seeds,  the first time i have experienced bad seed from Pinetree

Headless seedling on the left, often a sure sign of old seed. Low germination in general. I'll likely re-sow these.


The Cherokee Purple died of damping-off by the looks of it. Maybe the seedling was weaker than it looked. I haven't had damping-off in a long time. I wasn't able to afford sterile seed-starting soil this year, so for a 10 year old seed, it must have been a bad combination.


The Hoya flowers are opening




Unfortunately they are too high to sniff because they are near the top of a window that is at the sink- and i don't climb chairs or cupboards anymore.  I do catch a faint whiff of hyacinth-like scent with a bit of baby powder....i think its coming from the flowers.


Today we had rain, so the new snowcover is going away. I think tonight is going to be our first frost-free night in a long time- temps expected to stay in the upper 30's. Daytime temps forecast to be mid 40's to low 50's.  If the sun comes out it could turn out warmer.