It’s been a while, but we’ve been busy!

You all have a lot of expertise and I am looking for some answers. The pictures in the post below have a pink tint to them.  I can assure you that the golf course didn’t look so rosy to me! hahahaha  What can I do to adjust the camera to change this.  It is a new camera….

Thanks in advance! be well; peace….dan

Gardening & Other Goodies
Spring is always a busy time for gardeners… so busy, that I’ve been putting in my time there rather than blogging about it. Today, I can do show and tell of some of the garden activities over the past two weeks.

I purchased quite a few heirloom organic seeds this year and had collected some of my own from last year’s garden. Two weeks ago my tomato seedlings were getting leggy—so much so that I had to get them planted. Otherwise, I would have lost them. It had been a rainy spring here in Kansas making it quite a challenge to get the beds turned over and prepared enough to get the seedlings and seeds planted. But… a couple of weeks ago Dan rototilled a few beds. Don added the amendments and removed old weeds. Diane and I dug the holes and planted the seedlings and seeds.

Here’s what the tomato seedlings looked like… You can see that they are not too big. I started five different varieties this year: Long keepers, last year’s, Roma tomatoes, Beefsteak tomatoes, and Yellow Pear tomatoes.

Brother Don has had good results with adding 2 parts bone meal and 1 part blood meal to the holes before planting and then sprinkling it around the drip line after planting. It’s all organic and does not, in any way, burn the plant or its tender roots. Ideally, you’d also add green sand, but we couldn’t locate any of that… so we opted out of that part of the equation.

After the holes were dug, I added about a Tablespoon of the bone/blood meal mix to each hole. You may notice how the soil has two different colors to it. We also added a bag of peat moss to the soil to help break up some of the clay. Where I live the soil has a very high percentage of clay and it takes a lot of amending for it to break down enough to be able to work with it easily.

Now that the soil and holes are prepped, the tender little seedlings can get planted. Leaving only a couple of strong leaves from the top of the plant, I removed the weaker leaves from the base. I dug the holes deep enough so that the whole leggy part of the plant could be buried. All those little ‘hairs’ on the seedling will turn into roots if they are buried when planted.

Voila, here’s what it looks like after being freshly planted…

It looked so delicate and little that I was hoping they’d grow into large plants like the one’s you can just pay the big bucks for from the nursery or big box store and plunk in the ground without too much worry. However, since these are organic and heirloom and I want to know how to do it myself, I had to start from the seed stage so that I can learn and pay attention along the way…

After planting 20 plants of five different varieties, Diane went along and gave each tomato a good drink of water…

Here is Don picking weeds out of another bed that’s in the process of getting prepped for planting…

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The next thing after planting is getting the irrigation system set up. We believe in deep watering, especially in Kansas. When you deep water the roots of the plants shoot down far into the soil to search for the water. With the winds in the Kansas, the surface soil easily dries out. If you only surface water the plants, then their roots are right at the top. When the winds dry out the soil, the plants won’t be strong enough to survive. Thus, with deep watering and long roots, the plants can stand up to the winds and find the moisture it needs to hydrate itself. We have a rather basic system set up. Soaker hoses down each bed with attachments at the end. I have a single faucet output on the side of my house, so I have a multi-spigot system hooked to hoses.

We have the regular hoses hooked up to soaker hoses. Using a double line this year. Last year we only used one hose along each bed, but found that the soaking time took quite awhile. We’ll try it this way this year and see if we can soak deeply in a more time efficient manner this year.

Ok… the system is set up and off we go… (Two weeks pass… the plants get watered as needed. The sun has been shining. We’ve even had a few rains. The weeds are growing like crazy. Sure hope the plants do too.)

Look at how much the tomatoes have grown in just two weeks! I’ve even needed to support them with cages!

And… the zucchini plants were planted just one week ago and tiny little sprouts. They are beginning to take off…

This year, for the first time, I have a pea teepee. I’ve wanted one for years and years. My brother put up the stakes and yesterday I wrapped the netting around the teepee to give the pea tendrils something to latch onto to climb up.

To top it off is Diane’s design of planting Lolla Rosa red leaf lettuce in the shape of a heart and planting Minionette Golden around its edges… Look at how cute it looks. That little read heart… Plus, it’s positioned right in front of the kitchen window so when you look out of the kitchen, you see the heart of Lolla Rosa. Quite a cute idea, I think.

Last, but not least, we celebrated Mother’s day in a way that is fun for us… by playing golf. Tee time was at 9:00 a.m. right after morning muffins with berries and chocolate chips in them. That always gets the boys’ attention.

Have a great week; and bon appetit!