Earliest Ever

[OLE77]

Last of the snow disappeared Yesterday. Warmer temps this weekend hopefully gets the frost to start coming out. Don't think we will be planting any time soon.

[roony]

My radishes are up, peas are looking good, I think the 18 degree temp smoked some of my baby Kale plants. Lettuce looks fine. I noticed a couple of asparagus stalks poking out of the ground this morning. Game on!

[Dotch]

I see a few radishes in my germination trial are just starting to poke through. 

[RebelSS]

Love fresh crunch apples! 

[JIvers]

Those two hard freezes we had earlier in April had me most worried about my apricots, as they were in full bloom when we had lows in the twenties, and my trees are too big to cover. The good news is, as I had been told, is that they are most cold-resistant than peaches. Here is a picture of the little apricots I found this week.

I was able to cover my smaller pear trees up completely, and it looks like I will have some pears this year if all goes well.

Everything else that was up--roses, onions, garlic--looks fine as well.

 

[DrJill]

Peas and onions are a couple inches tall.

Raspberries are forming the blossoms ... which really surprised me.

[delcecchi]

watch oot tonite.  chance of frost as far down as Rochester....  Reversion to the mean strikes again. 

[roony]

I covered the beets and radishes. Lettuce and Kale should be able to take it. Peas are on their own. They are climbing up the trellis already. The peas should be able to take a frost because the vines have a high sugar content. (Could be why the bunnies and deer love them). It also helps that everything is so wet.

Oh Lord, please don't take my baby pears.

Edited May 13, 2016 by roony

[Dotch]

How did your pears fare? Everything around the yard appears to have taken the frost in stride including apples and mast crops. Radishes are just coming online. Slammed in 63 hills of vine crops yesterday including pumpkins, squash, gourds, muskmelon and cukes. Direct seeded this year as I just ran out of time. Early enough though so I may not be penalized. Also planted our Indian, excuse me, ornamental corn. Need to plant some canna bulbs that someone gave me if it doesn't rain too much tonight. Beautiful bulbs. Time to get them in the ground for the hummingbirds to fight over in August.  

[roony]

I think the pears and apples are ok. I haven't looked the pear tree over real closely but stopped when mowing around it yesterday and saw a few pears. The peas started blooming yesterday, they are really short for having blossoms, hopefully they will keep on stretching out. I love the pea pods. 

[roony]

The radishes are coming in nicely. I have found the trick to having nice radishes is having the patience to plant them evenly at about a inch and a half spacing. My youngest son took me cereally when I told him,(several years ago), to space the seeds that far apart and we have much nicer radishes that way. Problem is now I no longer have garden slaves around here. 

The warden and I, mostly I, got the garden pretty much planted over the weekend. Not as many hills as you, but enough. She goes overboard on the pumpkins and gourds and I go overboard on the peppers and tomatoes. Sometimes I think we should scale back and live like normal people do. Most the time I don't think that way.

[Dotch]

heh, heh, heh...the only help I get here is a couple Border Collies watching dirt fly. They are mesmerized by it then love tramping around the garden after it's planted. Agree on the radish spacing thing. I got a little seeder that helps a lot when I get it set right and I'm careful when planting. That is the one drawback to the scatter method I tried. Turned out kinda bunchy in spots and hence resulted in more spindly, non-productive plants. Old seed and it was an experiment to see how I liked it. So-so. Think I'll go back to planting in rows only closer together so I can use the narrow tiller attachment for my string trimmer if necessary. Tighter spacing should allow the fast growing plants do some shading to help with weed control. Going to try to do the fall radish and pea thing again. Should be some room for it in the nooks and crannies.

The mere thought of tomato plants going into the dumpster at the end of the greenhouse season makes me cringe. If there's room planting them seems the only logical course of action. I have practiced more restraint this year though. I did request 1, that's one grape tomato. A couple years ago I got 8 of a new variety that they wanted me to plant just to see what I thought of them. They were excellent flavored and more like a miniature Roma in size.The vines were huge though and covered about 5' on either side of the row. I contemplated hiring migrant workers to come in and pick them. The dumpster season is drawing nigh however. We'll see how my will power does...

  

[roony]

I have a few heirloom tomatoes that need a home.

[RebelSS]

1 minute ago, roony said:

I have a few heirloom tomatoes that need a home.

My stomach's always available.  

[roony]

I mean plants Reb. I'll see if I can fix you up with a few maters to try when Dotch and I make our "Mission from God" run. 

[RebelSS]

I know. I just had to throw that out there.   Thanks, I  should  have plenty from my two plants, looks like another bumper crop may be in the works...plants are already up to 2nd rung on cages. Must be something special about that spot.

[roony]

Pea pods are coming in.

[RebelSS]

WOW!! Two blossoms on my cherry 'mato already....

[Dotch]

Didn't have any store bought tomato cages left so had to improvise. Grape tomato was getting out of control, about 4' in diameter flopped on the ground and growing rapidly. Would've been tough to stuff it into a normal tomato cage without breaking hunks of it off. Had several sections of some old clothing store display racks made from 3/8" rod laying around. A few pieces of wire, some zip ties and the 3 lb. hammer to pound it in and presto!  One Binford tomato cage.  

[Dotch]

Picked our first Athena muskmelon last night. Since they were direct seeded was a little surprised to see it.  Looks nice and smells good so maybe sample it tonight for dessert. Planted some fall garden. A couple varieties of snap peas, one variety of winter radishes (red meat) and Sparkler spring-type radishes. Was just ahead of the rain so am keeping my fingers crossed. With the rain won't get more planted anytime soon.