Scorching the Garden 2022
April PT 1
April showers bring May flowers and May Flowers bring Pilgrims. Anyway, we visit the plot for some more prep work and peek in at the little ones in the nursery.
We trek to the plot once again to move more compost. As we made our third trip the wheel brace breaks off. Luckily, there was a sale on new, assembled wheel barrows, so we bought an even larger one for $30. The handles are not as thick as the old one’s.
We ended up moving close to 2 tons that day, then another 3 tons a week later. We only moved it about 80 or so feet, but those are steps we don’t have to take later. Might as well get as much done while we have the time.
Walking around the plots, we see more and more signs of spring. One of our favorite things to see are dandelions. They are one of the first foods for bees and that strong taproot breaks up the hard clay soil that so much of south west Pennsylvania has.
We’ll let them grow and collect the seeds to toss around the following year. Yea. Keep these!
Inside…the first round of plants is getting big so its time we take down the tent and set up for the first transplant.
We’re doing a few things differently this year and so far, they have all worked out really well. Aside from germinating in perlite and starting over 400 plants, we’re going to transplant everyone from the 6-cell seedling trays to 3.5″ deep pots and opening up the tent into a whole room.
We transplanted using the same compost we use in the gardens. This stuff is so rich, its black. We aren’t concerned about outside pests because all of this will end up outside in a month anyway.
Seeing as its not quite the middle of April yet, and we’ve had frost up to the 20th of May some years, we aren’t in a hurry to harden anything off yet. We do have concerns that the plants might grow too larger between now and planting that it may retard their blooming.
After a few days, the plants will get over their transplant shock. Then we will begin their compost tea feeding regimen. We want to go heavy on the potassium this year so to start, we reinforced the tea with a a pound of bananas. We also enrich our compost teas with other compounds one can find in nature such as wood ash, egg shells, sulfur, magnesium, and bone. Let to sit, then triple filtered, this batch of tea does have the aroma of bananas still. Its not entirely unpleasant.
So far, so good. We’ve a good head start on the garden and the plants are healthy and plentiful. Check back in a couple of weeks to see what else we’ve gotten ourselves into.
Do you enjoy the burn?
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