The last week of April and it’s finally starting to feel like spring. It’s been a journey from our first rendition of this series 9 weeks ago. We’ve had some rain and some warm sunny days which is making everything turn green around here. Except for all the yellow dandelions of course.
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Some people hate dandelions but our family is not among them. Not only do the yellow blooms signify spring is truly here, but they are also great for medicinal purposes. We ourselves are just scratching the surface on everything that dandelions can do. If you’ve got any easy uses for them please drop them in the comments below.
If you’ve been following along you’ll know that we’ve got a lot on the go and even more past due. We had a very productive week and caught up on some things. If you’d like to follow along you can subscribe below. Catch up on everything we’ve done so far here.
Seed Starting:
This section is going to slowly fade out of this series as we enter the summer months and won’t be starting as many seeds. We didn’t start any new seeds this week.
Update On Seeds Started:
Our tomatoes are super leggy and outgrowing the soil blocks they are in. They desperately needed to be potted up which can also fix a leggy tomato issue.
Last week we pruned our peppers down to one plant per soil block. Since I was potting up our tomatoes anyway I went ahead and did the peppers too.
Transplanting:
As mentioned above, our tomatoes were very leggy. This happens a lot with our small seed started section – we can’t get everything close enough to the grow lights we have. Luckily leggy tomatoes are very easy to correct.
We still had multiple tomatoes growing in each soil block as well. I let them grow to this size (see below image) so that when I pot up the tomatoes I can take the extras and use them as well.
I simply cut the extra tomato off as close to the soil as possible. Then I fill a 4 inch container with moist soil, make a deep hole in the middle and slide in the seedling.
The tomato will grow roots within a few days and will grow just like it was in its own pot all along. Until it does grow roots the tomato seedling will look a little limp and will hang down. You don’t need to worry about that, it won’t last long.
Pruning:
As mentioned in last weeks edition, we pruned our tomato plants of suckers again this week. This week we also needed to prune back our onion seedlings.
These are almost ready to be transplanted outside in our raised garden beds. We’ll probably do that in the next week or two. Right now they needed a haircut.
We trim our onions so they are 3 inches tall. That leaves enough leaves to still send plenty of energy to the roots while being small enough they won’t fall over.
We’re really hopeful for this crop this year. We haven’t had a ton of success growing onions in the past but this is the best our seedlings have ever looked.
Harvesting:
We made another harvest this week. It was the same as last week. Lettuce, Radishes, and Spinach were all harvested for some salads and sandwiches this week.
Weather:
The weather was weathering this past week. We set a record for the lowest temperature in this area with a temperature of -4.2°C (24.5°F). Then a few days later is was 20°C (68°F). The best part about this week was that we had some great days to work outside.
Two days back-to-back were about 12°C with a light breeze and I was able to work outside all day to finally finish building our compost. As well as clean out our chicken coop.
Next week the forecast is for lots of rain with slightly warmer temperatures. Anything we already have in the ground will be loving it.
Upcoming Next Week:
Next week we have some seed starting to do. Last week I mentioned we were going to start the warm weather squash plants this week. That ended up getting pushed a week so next week it is.
I did start on our flower garden bed this past week but did not get it finished. So that is still on our to do list. Also, we have ordered 3 pear trees to add to our garden area. This will take top priority next weekend as we will want to get them into the ground as soon as possible.
Conclusion:
This concludes this entry into our gardening this week series. We hope you enjoyed it and we hope you will subscribe and follow along with us on our journey. Also, be sure to check out our other blog entries where we have growing guides, seed saving guides, and recipes. If you have any questions or comments please leave them below.
