Wild Weather

We have had quite the spread of temperatures this week! It doesn't feel as hot as it says though. We haven't put in the AC units because with the fan on it feels pretty nice in the apartment, so it can't actually be getting into the 90's I don't think. I put my seedlings out May 22nd and they seem to be doing okay. I am going to have to throw away all that seed I think though. It's several years old and is lacking "vigor". The seeds germinated well, but after that it has been slow going. They have been real yellow and slow growing, with a bout of edema on the tomatoes. I'm still waiting for them to take off and really start growing. Seems like last year they put out several pairs of leaves faster than they have this year. I am thinking about buying some back up tomatoes just in case these ones don't do anything, since last year I didn't get any tomatoes either and was so disappointed. Anyhow, I have work to do in both the courtyard garden and porch garden. I am trying to really embrace shade plants this year on the porch, and go more for lush than bright. Think hastas, ferns, grasses... etc. Will post pictures soon :)

Cleaning up the NYPG

Hello Hello,

What better way to kick off May than to clean out the garden beds? I have decided to dump the old dirt from my hanging planters and to fill them with a mix of fancy dirt and normal stuff. There seems to be some debating going on about whether or not this mix is worth buying. But how I see it, is that the hanging baskets I use are subjected to so much wind that they dry out in literally like 1 or 2 days. I can't keep up on the watering, and then they wilt. So if this stuff holds water (evidently too well) then I will mix it with some standard potting soil and hopefully that will give me the best of both worlds. Also, the soil in my planting boxes is like 3 years old and needs to be refreshed anyways.

In other news, it looks like this year we should be coming up to our frost free date on time this year, which is great. Not only that, but it seems like we'll hit the magic zone for transplanting from indoors to outdoors: 70/50 for the high/low. Tomatoes and peppers do not like to be out before the nights are consistently above 50 degrees.

However, it has been very cloudy which worries me. I don't want my plants to get leggy or have mold problems, but I have also heard that too much direct sunshine can shock the plants when they are young... so we'll see how it goes. I will be sure to update this blog so that I know for next year.

My seedlings seem to be coming along okay so far. They aren't picture perfect, which is mildly distressing, but I'm trying to go easy on myself. My basil has some brown spots, which may have been caused by water getting on their leaves. I have been trying to be more careful and make sure the leaves aren't left wet for too long. My tomatoes were developing edema again, just like last year. This isn't all that surprising because its the same exact seeds and growing conditions. I have been really trying to restrain myself and not over water them to try to stop further damage, which, cross your fingers, seems to be working so far. For the last 12 days or so my seeds haven't seemed to really be growing much. Most of them popped out their first set of true leaves within about 7 days of sprouting, but since then they haven't been visibly changing much. I am pretty sure that they are going through a period of root growth and that once that is complete they will start to shoot up and grow more leaves. Once again, I will try to record what happens so that I know for next year.