Lin came out to the garden today, and I gave him the full tour. “Wow! You’ve got a real garden going on back here!” He made all the appropriate cooing noises over my plants, and he talked me down from my latest panic attack about the germination taking so long in the pepper/tomato/herb bed. I think he’s actually impressed. I’m not impressed with myself yet, but that has more to do with the fact it just isn’t moving fast enough for me. So impatient!
OK, I am still panicking about Bed Two. The carrots have come up, the two tomato plants I bought are looking great, and the five tomato seedlings of my own that I transplanted are getting new leaves, but no sign of any of the other seeds coming up. They aren’t really behind schedule yet, but because I don’t like to be without a backup plan, I’m going to start some more seedlings in my starter trays. Just in case.
I still haven’t settled on what I am going to do about trellising the tomatoes. All I really have to do is keep them off the ground and make sure they have sun exposure. This doesn’t mean I have to let them get 8 feet tall and keep them vertical. Two ideas I have been thinking about are a table-like structure or a v-like structure. Both of these trellis styles date back to the colonial period, and mine will probably look more colonial than the ones linked, seeing as I will be building them with bamboo and slender tree branches. Of course, both these styles mean the area beneath the tomatoes will not be plantable space, and I already planted some herbs there … but I guess I can transplant the herbs somewhere else.
At the moment though, my big panic is whether or not that freeze warning we have right now means it will really freeze here. Shortly, I am going to go out and check the soil temperature and make an executive decision about whether or not I need to find something to put over the plants or just let them be (and pray for the best). I know the soil temp won’t drop enough to damage the roots, but some of my plants don’t have many leaves. The loss of a few leaves could mean the loss of a plant. This freeze warning was not supposed to happen. We are well past the official last frost date according to the Ag Extension! Anyway, I am not sure what to do, and so I will probably go with staying up a little longer, keeping an eye on the soil and air temps, and then going to bed and hoping all turns out well.
Who am I kidding?! I will probably be staying up a little later, cutting the bottoms off of Dr Pepper bottles, and putting them over my precious tomato plants. The rest of the stuff either likes cold weather or has already been through a near freeze (or can still be replanted with little loss of time), so I’m not too worried about them. But the tomatoes … I do not want my precious baby tomato plants to freeze!
With that said, I think I’ll grab a flashlight and go wander around the garden and take some soil temps … and panic, panic, panic. :lol: