The Modern Victory Garden

The tomato seedlings are now 5 weeks old (planted February 14) and the vast majority of them are now big enough that they need to be repotted to a larger container.   They will not go into the garden until April 11th (at the soonest) or April 18th - and only then with protective covering.   That means there is another three or four weeks of growth to occur prior to planting out and I want to take advantage of that and start developing a larger root system by planting them deeply in larger containers.   Here are the tomato plants prior to repotting them.     

And here are some of them after they were potted up.   They were not watered yet when the photo was taken, so the soil is dry looking. 

The plants that were repotted are now going to be residing in the greenhouse as they are needing more room than I have available under the grow lights and it is time to begin hardening them off for their eventual move to the outdoor garden area.   However, because the night time temperatures are forecasted to dip down to around 35 degrees for the next week, I will be bringing them into the shop (where there are heaters running to keep it from getting colder than 50 degrees) each night and then taking them outside to the greenhouse in the morning.   This adds an extra chore in the morning and evening routine, but ensures too cool temps will not set them back and it gradually introduces them to the greenhouse environment.   I should only have to do this for about a week - unless we have an unusual cold snap at the end of March/start of April.    

While a good 2/3rds of the tomatoes were ready for repotting, the remainder (mostly "Legends" and a few "Viva Italia") was lagging behind somewhat - likely the result of too much competition/crowding under the grow lights and they were not coming out on top.   You can see some of them to the right in this next photo.

The smaller plants were not repotted but were put back under the lights and on the heat mat.  Because the other tomatoes are now moved to the greenhouse I am down to two full trays of seedlings under the lights, which means I can position them lengthwise under the lights and all the plants will get great coverage.  This should allow the remaining tomatoes to catch up to their siblings rather quickly.

Once the tomatoes were all attended to, I spent the remainder of the day working on the spring potato planting process.   This is a pretty significant annual undertaking because I plant a large amount (feeds us for a year) and because I trench the beds to grow the most potatoes possible in my raised boxed beds.   The total amount of area planted includes the largest of my main garden beds (4'X40') and one of the two medium sized beds (4'X12').   I got started on the potato planting process at about 1:30 pm.   I previously created a web page on how I grow potatoes in raised boxed beds, and I used the exact same procedures this year.    The process was more of a chore than normal because about an hour into the task ... it started raining lightly and pretty much never quit from there on.   I decided to keep working despite the weather because the potatoes are all sprouted and really needed to get into the ground soon.     At about 3:30 pm, I wrapped up with the planting and watering in process and did the final step of setting up the PVC hoops and covering them with bird netting over all of the potato beds.   This is necessary because I use bone meal in each trench as organic fertilizer and unfortunately my old dog (who shares the back yard with the garden) will dig up all the beds looking for the source of that delicious "bone" smell.   She has done it before and I am wise to her "doggy" ways.  

No pictures of the trenched and netted beds because I was soaked through, tired, and ready to go cook some dinner and could not muster the energy (or interest) to take pictures in the rain.   I have to tell you though, that in honor of the annual potato planting, we had a large potato salad with crispy fried chicken for dinner!   Used up the very last of the stored "Caribe" potatoes plus a few "Buttes" to make the potato salad.   I have one full box and one ¼ full box of "Butte" potatoes left in storage and five quarts of pressure canned quartered baby potatoes in the pantry.   These should be sufficient to hold us over to the first of the new potatoes, which usually are available in June. 

I hope you were able to get some time in the garden this weekend.