Mission almost accomplished

It's June 11 and planting is still not done.  But it's mostly done.

All of the tomatoes, peppers, squashes, and melons have been placed in the ground, or in containers large enough to keep them comfortable for the season.  There doesn't appear to have been much advantage to putting them in the ground in early May.  They might like to have room for their roots to spread, but more than that they like their roots to be warm enough.  All the tomatoes survived, and one early transplanted Tigerella tomato looks quite robust compared to the others, but other than that, the tomatoes did just as well in the protection of the greenhouse.  They were a bit crowded, though - they grew taller and less full than the plants that were given a little more space.  One winter squash and all the Costata Romanesca zucchini's exposed to the May cold were lost.  The Costatas grow quickly, so I'll wait until May next year, and maybe even direct sow them.

The two Marketmore cucumbers that survived to the transplant stage also perished.  They were forgotten in the covering-up frenzy of an afternoon hail storm and didn't survive the cold night that followed.  Lesson: covering works, even with plastic, unless cucumbers are especially fragile.  We acquired a Sweet Slice cucumber today at Greenhaven and transplanted it into the Topsy Turvy Upside Down Tomato Planter (As Seen On TV!).  Growing  vegetables downward is new to us.  Peeking into a book called Vertical Gardening on amazon.com, I see that it may not be totally ridiculous.  The planted cucumber now hangs from one of the clothesline supports.  The product packaging suggests that we could also grow peppers, eggplants and even zucchinis.  What else?    If it works, and if the greenhouse roof is built for it, we could move them indoors with the first threat of frost in September (as we can, I am aware, do with right-side-up containers of similar size).

Potatoes are reliable, at least for showing up on the surface.  We just have to hope something is happening underground.  I picked up a box of Russet Burbank seed potatoes at the grocery store mid-May, cut them up and let them heal for a week in the basement, then planted them in a raised be on May 21.  If we have to heap more soil on top of the plants as they grow, that's going to be an ultra-raised bed.  Hope it doesn't topple over.  It looks like most of the potato chunks have made themselves present on the surface now and the healthy rosettes are rapidly growing, like the ones pictured at the right.  Those in the picture, however, are likely not from potatoes planted this year, given that they are situated several feet away among the rattlesnake pole beans.  There are a few others showing up in that vicinity, which happens to be where potatoes were grown last year.  Someone (me) was less than thorough at harvest time.

I've been slow at getting all the sowing done, largely because I wasn't sure where all the transplants were going.  Individual tomato and squash plants have big footprints.  And they want maximum sun exposure.  Rather than get out the tape measure and calculate the space they will occupy, which is even more difficult if the beds aren't completed yet, I find it easier to get the them planted and work certain other vegetables around them.  Pole beans also get priority placement because there has to be room to build a stable structure that will be exposed to sufficient sunlight for the beans and will shade or not shade other plants as needed.  Small fry like carrots, parsnips, onions, radishes, beets and lettuce can go almost anywhere - among tomatoes, around squashes, beneath pole beans, between rows of spinach.  Bush beans are a little bigger, but a single plant can still occupy blank space at the end of a bed or fill in a gap where the spacing didn't quite work.  There is still space in a couple of beds for additional plantings of beans for the next three weeks.  Plus, I'll be trying two bolt-resistant varieties of lettuce in different areas to see if I can find a sweet spot.  Home grown lettuce is amazing and I wish I could figure out how to have it all summer long.  Other than that, planting is pretty much done.  Yay!  We can relax now.  ;)