May 26, 2018
The weather is cooperating with the summer garden this year. I've got inch and a half long zucchini. Starting them early and keeping them in cold frames has paid off. I've gained about a month on Mother Nature. Now that the air and soil temperature are up they are going full blast. The tomato plants have buds on them, which is amazing to me because they were in 4" pots and leggy when I got them..
They've been sheltered from the wind and covered at night and are now bushy, tall, and almost ready for their towers. The melons and cucumbers have all fallen over and begun their vining. I have to refrain myself from moving them if they have the underside of their leaves exposed to the sun, or if they aren't all going in different directions. Sometimes 'no touch' is in order, they know what they're doing..
May 27, 2018
One of the problems I'm having with my Creeping Jenny spread is that it can grow a foot long underneath the mulch in total darkness. I think it's able to accomplish this by transferring the energy from the sunlight that is collected by all the plants that it's attached to. I don't know if it's the runners or roots that are the chlprit. My son has nut sedge that has grown 18" under weed cloth. I think it can do this by using the energy stored in the nuts..
It's gotta die sometime, right? My latest attempt at inhibiting it is to lay down two inch thick moldy hay flakes, and then use a shovel to cut down along the outside of them about four inches deep. This should separate the advancing plants from their source of energy. I've cut off their supply line so they will die..
May 28, 2018
So the perpetual spinach that I just transplanted into the greenhouse from my little six packs are bolting already. The starts that I gave my son have bolted too. This may be a good example of why you should buy your seeds locally. We got these seeds from Amazon because they weren't available locally, and may have come from a country on a continent that has growing conditions dissimilar to ours. It's hard to believe that seeds can have a memory, but this isn't the only example of this kind of behavior..
Seeds grown specifically for your area are recommended for plant success. Since these seeds were planted for overwintering I'll probably be ok. I'll just miss the spring crop..
