The Modern Victory Garden

I took the opportunity while watering the seedlings earlier this week to thin the tomatoes and swiss chard plants down to a single sturdy plant per planting cell.   I do this by using a small pair of sharp scissors to snip the plants to be removed right at the soil level.   If care is taken, the remaining plant is entirely undisturbed and is left to carry on with no trauma.   The small plants removed are then added to the compost pile.  I will need to do the same with the latest batch of lettuces because I was a bit too heavy handed with the seed and they are crowded.  I need to wait until those plants are just a bit bigger though to tackle that chore.  The tomatoes are doing really well and seem to have appreciated the thinning.    

The second batch of broccoli has all emerged as of this morning.   The basil (“Large Italian” that I planted on a bit of a whim is also all up and going strong.  I do not have any spare room in the garden beds for the basil so I will likely be planting this in some of my containers.   They will reside on the deck for the summer and hopefully provide some good pesto for freezing.  

I spent some time in the shop last night doing some prep work for the upcoming pea patch planting.    It is my intent to set up a horizontal trellis support for the bed of peas to provide necessary support but still get the benefit of a wide-bed planting of peas (as opposed to rows).   I have seen others use panels of hog wire laid across the boxed edges of a bed as a horizontal trellising system for low growing peas.  My intent is to duplicate that concept but to use my usual trellis netting in place of the wire panels.   I want to create something that is reusable, economical, and works with my existing bed design.  After thinking about this some, I came up with a simple design that uses bamboo poles I already have on hand and the same netting I use on my vertical grow support structures.  The only purchases I needed to complete the design was a couple sticks of ¾” square doweling and 16 screw eye-hooks that are large enough to hold the bamboo canes in the “eye”.   The wood pieces were cut into equal lengths and then the eye-hooks were screwed in at appropriate spacing.  The result is a support that will fit into the metal bracket holders on my beds (the ones that hold the PVC hoops) and will have eye-hooks to support a bamboo pole.   The pole will be threaded through each  end of the trellis netting and then placed on the eye-hook supports with the netting then stretched across the bed between them.   It will make more sense when I get it put up and can take some pictures for you to demonstrate.   In the meantime, here are the supports all prepped and ready to be installed. 

Happy gardening everyone!