springtime!

Spring has definitely sprung.....in about the span of a week, I instantly felt behind with all of my spring garden plans.  Here is some left over mesclun salad mix from a couple of months ago that bolted. It has a cool look to it, but as I mentioned earlier the bees don't seem to like it as much as the broccoli and bok choy flowers.  I took picture below before I finally pulled out the broccoli and replaced it with some patty pan squash.

On the more depressing garden front - Nematodes - my garden has them.  I am pretty sure they are the dreaded Root Knot Nematodes.  Most of the tomato plants that I pull up have the "knotty roots" characteristic of nematodes.  I still have had good production with most of my tomatoes, especially, the first setting.  If you Google "nematodes" in your garden, it reads like a death sentence, especially for things like tomatoes and squash.  Apparently, they don't seem to bother winter vegetables or beans.  This year, I amended the soil and planted my tomato area solid with marigolds (Golden Guardian).  I have a mixture of hybrids and heirlooms, so we will see how it goes.

I did have one tomato plant that overwintered from the fall.  I had some others that I probably should not have removed, but they looked pretty rough, so I pulled them in early January.  I left one in the ground, a Box Car Willie, but it was not looking very good.  I had decided to pull it and start fresh, but actually found a tomato on it, so I decided to keep it in the ground see what happened.  With a little TLC, it now has about 20 + tomatoes!!  I should of kept the others in the ground!!  I really need to work on my patience with garden plants.  Anyway, I am super excited that I will have an early set of tomatoes as the new spring crop is just now starting to flower.  One other note - that tomato is in a bed with definite nematodes - so I am a bit confused on the topic at this point.  My thoughts are that since soil temps have been cooler they are probably not as active right now.

On to the tomato list for Spring 2014.  I always have a list in mind of what varieties I want to try and change it around 100 times over the winter, and then change it again when I get to the nursery.

Box Car Willie - leftover from the fall - some early season tomatoes pictured above

Tycoon - Hybrid - strong disease and nematode resistance.

Better Boy - Hybrid

Yellow Pear - Hybrid - bringing in some new color this year...fingers crossed.

Cherokee Purple - Heirloom - best tasting tomato we had last year.

Arkansas Traveler - Heirloom - very excited about this one after reading about it.

C-Tex - Heirloom - really want to grow this tomato from Conroe, TX.  It is a cross between a Black Krim and an Early Girl.  I planted it too late last year and this year, something has eaten most of the leaves. Argh.

Matt's Wild Cherry - supposed to be a very vigorous cherry tomato from Mexico that does well in heat and poor soil.  I have a new bed that just has our natural clay soil, so we will see how it does.

Hope to post more soon as the Spring progresses....

PS....Dear neighborhood cat(s) that keep going into my garden, please stop......please. The end.

Temps in STX today are 75 / 64......perfect!

quick winter recap

Well it turns out, I did not do a good job of posting over the winter, so here is the brief recap.  Planted a six pack of "green fingers" broccoli with good success.  Next year hope to double / triple that amount and try some different varieties.  Also planted a couple of packets of "mesclun" salad greens and they did well, as did some arugula seeds from a friend.  I will load up the winter garden with these next year.  Experimented with bok choy and that took a while to get going, but then did well.  On the failure side, I still cannot figure out the mystery of the brussel spout.  Maybe, I am starting them too late in the year, they were all still very small, when it is time to get ready for spring.  I almost forgot, I planted some sweet onions (I think they were sweet or 1015, I can't remember which variety.  Hence the blog, I am supposed to be keeping) with moderate success.  They have not gotten really big to date, but they are very tasty.  I pulled out about half of the onions (I need tomato real estate!) and will let the other half keep going.

Some of the broccoli, bok choy, and lettuce mix went to flower / seed.  Most was a beautiful yellow flower that the bees are obsessed with when the weather is nice.  The arugula has an interesting white flower, that doesn't really seem to interest the bee community, I will take a photo of some that is left in the garden for next time.

I also planted some turnips from seed (sparkler variety) and did finally get a couple.  I planted another round during this early spring to see if I can get some more.  Swiss chard was also another failure this winter.  I planted it from seed, but something always eats it before it gets large enough to harvest.  I have moved it to a few different areas in the yard with the same results. I might just purchase full grown chard from the nursery next year and see if that will deter my caterpillar friends.

It has been a strange winter with lots of rain and cold temps, but no major freeze.  I will post the early spring recap next time, complete with neighborhood cats and nematodes....but, for now, I am day dreaming of a garden full of tomatoes, squash, beans, and okra.....

Temps in STX today are 57 / 76.