Spring 2010 Garden Pics

Here's a few quick pics I managed to take in between the ton of work I got finished this weekend. I managed to put together my cold frame, re-stake all my tomato plants, pot up some flower seedlings & set all my vegetable plants outside to start hardening off. All the plants, minus the 7 big ones I have left from my January 23rd set spent the night outside on Friday night & did just fine! =) They were all in my greenhouse. I thought of a neat little trick to keep them toasty & humid in there. I took the bottom half of a peat pellet greenhouse, placed it on the bottom shelf below all the plants, and filled it with hot (as hot as I could get from faucet) water right before I went to bed. It seems to help the environment tremendously. I will probably continue to do this for any even slightly cool nights we have until after last frost date.

Saturday, I got the cold frame put together, then put 90% of the stuff that was in the tall greenhouse into it. I then brought down my 7 large tomato plants. I was only able to fit two of them & two medium sized ones in the greenhouse. It seems like a slight watse, but no big deal. The other 5 that I couldn't fit in there were re-staked of course, then I tied the top of each stake to my deck fencing. They are in dire need of larger pots. The 1 gallon cursery containers are not cutting it anymore. I have to water them twice a day (and they still fade a bit before I get home), plus i'm sure they are starting to get root bound in there. I'm going to see if I can buy a load of 5 gallon nursery containers at lunch or later today. Anyways, all 7 of the larger plants spent the night outside Saturday night and did fine. =) They got a little limpy, but that's just because of their current water needs in the 1 gallon pots. Hopefully, we will not have a last frost (Blackberry Winter) so I can keep all the plants outdoors for the rest of the season. If we do though, it will be a lot of work to bring them all back inside just for one night, which will not be fun! Anyway, enough babble from me, here are the pics. =)




Cold Frame (Everything that hasn't already been outside, except the 7 large tomato plants & 2 medium sized ones):





Greenhouse (2 of the 7 large tomato plants & the 2 medium sized ones):





2 of the 7 January 23rd tomato plants:





3 of the 7 January 23rd tomato plants:





Bee Balm (I've been wondering if I need to separate this...):





Dolly Madison's Coming Up!:





Garlic (Both are the softneck varieties I received from a trade on GardenWeb. They are doing well so far!):







Garlic Chives (Doing well & getting thick, in their 3rd year):





Grape bed/plants:





Nasturtiums:





"UT Orange" Canna's (Plant on the bottom. One on top is a Sunflower. I was excited to see this pop through, as I didn't know if these survived or would even come back if they did!):





Strawberry Bed (Didn't do much at all last year, but I didn't receive them until the Fall. They're looking great this year! Hopefully, i'll get some berries. Thanks, Dave!):





Tulips: