Started the following Saturday, April 2:
Toothache Plant (Spilanthus Acmella) -more on that later
Nepitella herb
Ancho hot pepper
Lemongrass
A few more Ghost Peppers so i can have some plants to share
Shooting Star eggplant
Black Beauty eggplant
Martin's Carrot hot pepper
Doorknob sweet pepper
Catnip
Today will be Tomato Day
I just need to make my final choices on what types to plant and which to pass this year.
As usual, i have a fair selection to pick from:
Matt's Wild cherry
Black Krim
Martino's Roma
Riesenstraube
Burpee's Supersauce
3 seeds left of Pruden's Purple
Cherokee Purple
Opalka
Chocolate Miracle
Pineapple Bicolor
Ivory Pear
I'm also planning to try planting watermelon in soil bags this year. I'll get some 2 cubic foot bags of garden soil and set them just outside the actual plowed garden and slip a few seeds in each and see how it goes. If it does not work i will just give up on melons...permanently.
This morning it seemed like it would be a good day to burn Stanley's cut-offs and maybe give him a dose of Fungonil but the wind picked up again.
I have some odds and ends seeds i need to not forget:
Job's Tears
Honesty
Mexican Hat flower
Leonotis
Ground Cherries
Skirret
pumpkin on a stick
I did remember to buy soaker hose (2 packages of 100' each) and 100'x20' 6 mil black plastic sheeting. Depending on the configuration options (which i won't be sure of until i can pull it all from the packaging, lay it out, take stock and measure the garden) i may just grab one more 100' soaker hose. I did read that for optimum efficiency the hose lengths should be less than 50'. My garden is roughly 35'x35' maximum, so this shouldn't be a problem.
I have been reading up on covering the whole garden.
I was a little worried that lack of air to the soil might be an issue but a few articles from Ag Exchange sources say that it isn't a problem and the plastic actually collects the CO2 from decomposing matter in the ground. This is beneficial because when you make holes to put the garden plants in, the CO2 is concentrated and released right to and among the leaves of the garden plant. The plants are in a sort of CO2 chimney - like a person taking in supplemental oxygen- it is a boost. I decided that if i am going to lay down all that plastic, i'm also going to install the hoops & Reemay again. My biggest malfunction with the hoops was access. The wind that i am constantly griping about makes opening and closing the hoops very tricky when it is just me trying to control the floaty Reemay. With the plastic on, weeding chores should be very minimal. With the hoops and Reemay on, bug infestations may be severely reduced as well. The Reemay might also hold in more of that lovely co2 and the plastic will keep it all very warm.... it might be too warm and will definitely need monitoring. If there's too much generated heat, i think i could apply wetted newspaper in strategic areas and watch out for slugs, snails and earwigs. I think this stands a chance to be a good strategy overall.
