Garden and the Storm

Wow - thought my gardens might be goners tonight when a big storm rolled in.

But all is well, no damage but we did get .40 of rain in a short period of time and are still in a watch until midnight. I turned off the sprinkler system for tomorrow, it's mowing day anyway.

My little woodlands gardens in front took a little hit from the wind but look fine now. When I took this photo I noticed a very nice Guernsey Wyoming, post storm, sunset.

 

And in one final note, I have two tomatoes (Better Boy's) turning color. The goal is my first tomato before July 1, looks like I have a week left. We seldom eat bacon, but when that first tomato ripens it will be BLTs with lettuce from the garden and homemade French bread. Can't hardly wait

Garden Update

The garden is up and growing, doing quite well despite the cool nighttime temperatures here in Wyoming. The weather guys said, hot next week, several days in the mid-90s but when I checked again today, it says mid-70s. Darn the luck!

 

We are eating radishes and green onions from the garden, with the first tomato and strawberries about three weeks away, maybe two, with some good growing weather.

 

I have discussed my onion planting on my blogs before but it might be well worth another look. I plant onions one to one and a half inches apart, yep, one or a tad more inches. I thin by pulling to eat the green onions, eventually ending with onions having enough room to grow into large storage onions. I plant mostly sweet varieties and have found that they store better than many people think.

 

We are fast approaching my favorite time of year – fresh stuff from the garden time!

 

My Quest for the First Tomato of the Season

Onion Sets 1 month old

Maybe we have turned the corner. The weather is warming and the frost is out of the ground in my garden. No, not time to plant yet, but I will be putting in some radishes, peas and carrots the first week of April. If they don’t come up I will replant on the 15^th and put in my potatoes. I start getting serious the first week of May. We can still get the little cold snap in May but I will put out onions and plant more peas, radishes and carrots in early May.

I save my tomatoes for later, around the twentieth of May.

3 week old tomato plants

 I do have two pots that I start tomato seeds in and add soil after they get their first true leaves, a little at a time. This way I have no transplant shock. These plants, a cherry and a yellow pear tomato, are on the deck on sunny days now.

I will get my first tomatoes from these in early June. Hope it will drive the gardeners around me crazy when I have fresh tomatoes six weeks before them.

I am now planting more flowers for my boarders, most of the first planting are growing but others I didn't want to start this early.

Hollyhocks at three weeks