As I wrote earlier, I got a early start on my garden just as a lot of you did. That first week of April when I planted just about everything held so much promise...warm weather, occasional rain, a veritable Garden of Eden forecast. Obviously someone is playing a long running April fools joke on us. Of the crops I planted, the cucumbers are still not up nor are any of the four varieties of squash. Even the second crop of beans planted 10 days ago are just now sprouting. On the bright side, the potatoes are up and looking good as are the tomato, pepper, and eggplant transplants. The cool weather combined with the excessive rain has really slowed things down in the garden.
So what to do. Warmer and dryer weather is coming. To help myself out, today I started several flats of cucumbers and squash seeds. It won't take but a couple days to sprout these seeds in the basement and then they'll go in the garden. So if your seeds didn't sprout in the garden go ahead and start a few seeds indoors and then set them out once they are up and approaching the second leaf stage. These young seedlings won't have much of a root system in a week but they will transplant easily. If we do this we'll be back on schedule.
In bed 142, I put in sweet potatoes for the slips. The sweet potatoes will sprout and be ready to transplant in about 3 weeks and I blog that then. If you want to start your own sweet potatoes, simply plant a whole sweet potato in your garden or in a pot. Bury the tuber about 4" deep. Once it sprouts and the sprouts get 4"-6" tall, dig up the original tuber, break off the individual sprouts and replant those. You'll get 2-3 lbs of sweet potatoes (or more) from each slip.
Hang with me, even here on the farm it is too wet to do much in the garden. But believe me, things will get better.
So what to do. Warmer and dryer weather is coming. To help myself out, today I started several flats of cucumbers and squash seeds. It won't take but a couple days to sprout these seeds in the basement and then they'll go in the garden. So if your seeds didn't sprout in the garden go ahead and start a few seeds indoors and then set them out once they are up and approaching the second leaf stage. These young seedlings won't have much of a root system in a week but they will transplant easily. If we do this we'll be back on schedule.
In bed 142, I put in sweet potatoes for the slips. The sweet potatoes will sprout and be ready to transplant in about 3 weeks and I blog that then. If you want to start your own sweet potatoes, simply plant a whole sweet potato in your garden or in a pot. Bury the tuber about 4" deep. Once it sprouts and the sprouts get 4"-6" tall, dig up the original tuber, break off the individual sprouts and replant those. You'll get 2-3 lbs of sweet potatoes (or more) from each slip.
Hang with me, even here on the farm it is too wet to do much in the garden. But believe me, things will get better.
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