Well I found both good and bad in my garden this weekend.
The good is that all my seed potatoes have sprouted and are growing strong. There are twelve plants growing in this staggered row. I have never grown fingerlings so I don't know what to expect when harvest comes. When I grew russets, this row would give me about 15-20 pounds of potatoes. I usually only recommend growing potatoes, which are generally cheap to buy, if you have plenty of garden space and/or you want to eat a certain, special type of potato. I have the space and I have a knack with potatoes so they are a "go to" vegetable for me. I save my own seed potatoes so after this year I won't have to buy any. I also like to keep in practice growing them since in a worst case scenario they are one of the best vegetables to grow since they store so well. I've said before that I am not a "Prepper" and this site is not specifically for "Dooms-dayers" but as an old Boy Scout, I do like to be prepared.
The bad this weekend? We had a very late-season frost last week. It wasn't a killing frost but it did do some damage. If you look closely at my bean plants many of them are "frost-burned" and the leaves are very damaged. All the seeds sprouted except one and I reseeed that one. Actually it did sprout but something nipped it off at the root. So more than half my beans are damaged. I watered them heavily and will give them a week to see how well they recover. It is still early so I can always reseed them. My plan is to plant a batch of beans about every two to three weeks anyway so I have a constant harvest.
My peas are growing slowly but surely. As they get more growth and more leaves they will grow faster. Again, all but one seed sprouted. Most of them are already attaching tendrils to the cages so they will start to climb. I probably could have planted them earlier but we had such a cold, wet spring I couldn't get the soil tilled and prepared.
The onions are also doing quite well. I weeded both the peas and the onions, which took all of ten minutes. I try to weed early and often so that the weeds don't get deep roots. I still need to mulch thse plants and hope to do that next weekend.
I have enjoyed several bunches of radishes already. These have grown very well. I could start picking lettuce and spinach anytime. I ate a couple spinach leaves while weeding and they are crisp and tasty. I probably will not plant anything else in the cold frame until the fall. I will let what I have growing in there mature and harvest as it does. I will need to prepare a anding seedbed to plant these plants outside the box since the weather is (hopefully) warming up enough at night.
I turned my compost and both working piles are too dry to decompose as fast as I would like. We had a pretty good rain this past week but I think I will have to drag the hose down to my compost bins to wet them down and get them cooking again. You must maintain a good balance of moisture and aeration as well as the right balance of carbon and nitrogen levels in your materials.
Happy Gardening!
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