I didn’t write anything last week. There wasn’t much to write about. We were still enjoying winter in May. Everything outside was completely dead. The plants inside were running out of room, nutrients, space, light, etc. It wasn’t fun. Luckily, the weather improved. I’m feeling much more confident about planting things outside now. I’m guessing we may still get another freeze, but we can deal with it if it happens.

I want to put a plug in for two of my favorite tools that saved us lots of time and energy today. First, our Honda FG-110 mini tiller. Second, my pitchfork. My peas have started coming up, but so had a bunch of weeds between the rows of peas. In just a few seconds with the mini tiller, the weeds were gone. I never had to bend down and pick a single one… magic. We used the pitchfork to turn over the raised beds in the garden… most notably, where the tomatoes and peppers had frozen just a few short weeks ago. The pitchfork is also the best tool for turning the compost pile. I don’t think I could garden without it.

Today we planted a whole bunch of stuff outside. Tomatoes, Peppers, Tomatillos, Eggplant, and Squash. We picked up a roll of black cloth that we put down over the raised beds, then cut holes at various spots in the cloth where we planted our plants. Hopefully this will help keep the weeds at bay, and also stimulate root growth of our plants. Hopefully it won’t get so hot that all the plants die. We haven’t had much luck with our experiments thus far, but I’m hopeful this one will turn out well.

Despite having 7 of the raised beds planted, we still have a lot of plants growing in trays. It’s time to start giving the plants away.

Well, it looks like it was a little too early to be moving things outside. We’ve had 4 or 5 inches of snow this week. Although the low temperatures were hovering in the mid-40s, they have regressed to the high-20s. It’s been as cold as 25 degrees this week, and they’re predicting more cold and snow this week. Somebody needs to tell mother nature that it’s May, not March.

None of the potatoes or peas have sprouted outside yet. We didn’t cover the broccoli, cauliflower, or onions, but they all seem to be doing fine.

The covers we placed over the tomatoes, peppers, and squash claim to protect crops down to 29 degrees. It’s been below 29 degrees every day this week. I’m pretty sure the squash are a complete loss, and it looks like the tomatoes are at least 75% gone as well. The peppers seem to be fine, other than the damage they have taken from the cover rubbing against them in the wind. Maybe it would have been better to not cover the peppers at all. We’ll never know.

Everything is continuing to grow and need more room to expand. We’re going to be forced to move even more plants outside this week, so let’s hope it stops snowing sooner than later.

We’re also starting to plant seeds for other stuff that doesn’t take as long to get going. We planted Armenian Cucumbers (a melon that looks and tastes like cucumber), Cucumber, more Cherokee Purple Tomatoes, and a bunch of pumpkins. Now we just need it to warm up!