Spring is Here! March 28, 2010

One sure sign of spring are the 'Yellow Bells' in the south. Our new bed in front looks very spring like today. It won't be long before we start planting the frost sensitive veggies.

Last Saturday we put the remaining potatoes in the ground. Pictured is the chief potato planter hard at work.

Yesterday and today we planted more onions to supplement our struggling onions planted in February. Five inches of snow and multiple freezes took their toll. I took this opportunity to add 28 more feet of raised beds. Over time I'll fill the beds with more soil but for now it's sufficient to grow onions. On Saturday I added 1500 pounds of top soil as well as a 1/2 yard of goodies from the compost pile just to create the new beds.

Now if I just had a little more room :-)

Here are the latest pictures of the transplants. So far all the plants are healthy and doing well. For the moment I am caught up with the process. Now we need some dry and warm weather. Last week we had over 4 inches of rain in two days. I'm a little worried about the two rows of seed potatoes I planted. They may rot from all the rain. Time will tell. The rows are 250' long and I have four more to plant when it dries out. The deer have come out of the woods and are looking around. Sweet Pea keeps them moving but they just wait until dark when no one can see them. When the crops come up I'll spray them with a liquid that is harmless to humans but distasteful to deer and rabbits.


Here is our deer protector, all 42 pounds of her.

I forgot to post these pictures last month to show that Georgia really does have snow. The good news is that contrary to our experience in the Annapolis area, the snow was gone in 1 day.

March Update

Here are some of the graduating class participants. Most of the tomato plants are now 8" tall. They will be transplanted to 4" pots and then later this month they will go to 6" pots if they grow enough. By the time they go in the ground in late April, they may be 24"-32" tall. I'm, going to try to leave the peppers in 2" pots and see how that affects the maturing process. They take a long time to mature in the garden since they need the summer heat so I think a good root structure is better than verticle growth.


This picture show the stages of transplanting. I'm going from 2" rectangular pots to 4" round. From left to right in the foreground - an 8" tomato plant in original 2" pot; a plant trimmed of lower leaves; a plant re-poted in a 4" pot with a bamboo stick and name tag. Name tags are very important as we will have 6 different tomato varieties, each with a different purpose.


I've laid out the potatoes so they can start to produce eyes. The plan is to plant them by St Patrick's day (Mar 17). Shown here are 50 pounds of red and white. They can yield up to 10x their weight. I'm getting 50 more pounds today so I'm hoping for a big potato crop :-)


In the front are the new Broccoli plants. They are still rather small. but are starting to get their true leaves. They will be ready to transplant in about 2 weeks.

Time to Transplant

Here is a picture of me dilligently transplanting my first tomatoes and peppers. The first transplant is from 72 cells to 24 cells. Later on I'll move them to 4" pots. By the time I get ready to plant in April, the basement will look like a jungle!

Here is the result so far. In a few days I'll hit them with starter fertilizer and perk them up.

Growing Tomato Plants

I have about 200 pepper plants and 300 tomato plants in here. As soon as they get their true leaves, I'll transplant them into bigger containers and put them outside the tent where it is around 60 degrees now. My germination rate for this year is above 90% as of today. I have one challenging pepper seed that is testing my patience. So far I have 2 plants out of 36. Time will tell.

Here is my home made germination tent. I have a small ceramic heater inside to maintain 75-80 degrees. It is located in the basement where the temperature is near 60 degrees.

2009 Polk County Fair Cedartown Georgia

Here are the fruits of our labors. The fair is held in late September so it is a challenge to keep the vegetables viable until then. This year we surpassed last year and won 12 first places, 6 second and 1 honorable mention. My wonderful wife Debbie poses with her canning entries and that's me with the veggies.

The Farm Stand 2009

Here is our tomato display in mid to late June. We had five varieties this year: Celebrity, Big Mama's (plum), Mountain Fresh, Park's Whoppers, and Rutgers. All did well except the Rutgers which fell victim to late blight.

Here is a view of part of our Farm Stand at our barn. The time is early-June. Notice the onions hanging to dry. The squash and beans were finally producing well.