Are you planting your warm season crops? With the nights warming up this week it’s time to get all your planting done. This week tomatoes, basil, beans, cucumbers, zucchini, sweet potatoes and squash can all go in the ground. If you are planting seedlings be sure to water the soil after planting and keep an eye on them for a few days. If you are planting seeds in the hot weather you may want to place a board or a sheet of burlap over the newly planted seeds to keep the soil cool. Seeds don’t like to germinate in the heat so this will shade them until they germinate. Once they have germinated remove the covers and keep them watered until established.
My sweet potato cuttings have rooted and they went in the ground yesterday. These are easy plants to grow and will yield about three to four pounds per plant just before frost arrives. I still have too many plants so if you want to try some out and live locally give me a shout.
Hopefully the sweet potatoes will look like this soon. They are an attractive plant to have in the garden.
My tomato plants have been in the ground for two weeks now. I placed some fresh grass clippings on one bed of tomatoes. I hope it adds nitrogen to the soil but I can’t see any difference yet between this bed and the tomato bed without clippings. The good thing today is two tomato plants are already in flower. It’s time to remove the broccoli from this raised bed.
This year I grew cinnamon, thai, lemon, holy and sweet basil and planted most of them in containers. I will also plant some in the raised beds as basil seems to do better there. The lack of natural light this spring had many herbs lagging behind and the same goes for basil. My plants are small but once they get in the garden they will catch up.
I am planting the peppers out this weekend in the last raised bed. Phew, its taken forever to see the last of the plants come out of the greenhouse. We had a bit of a push to get things done as we have a wedding photo shoot being done tomorrow in the garden. All the containers are planted and garden beds tidied. This deadline means a few new projects and old ones were completed this week. More on that in another post. So remember to get your warm season crops in the garden.
