vegetable status

Weatherwise, it has been lousy around here during the six weeks since I planted my vegetables. Wet, cool, and not much Sun sums it up, but it looks like summer finally showed up yesterday.

Early on, I lost one tomato plant and a bunch of pepper plants. The tomato plant just never took to its transplanting, while the pepper plants suffered from an attack of snails and slugs.

The surviving tomato plants did ok until this week when I noticed signs of blight. The pepper plants have just been slow to grow.

The plants look pale in the photo because the day before, I sprayed them to counter the blight.

The dog (Pumpkin Pie) is looking around the corner for her nemesis du jour: Chip or Dale.

plants in

Depending on the weather, I usually plant my vegetables during the week after the Dayton Hamvention.

Well, the weather has been lousy around here: we have had a very cold and wet spring. It has been so cold that I actually have turned the furnace on a few times since returning from Dayton.

Weather be damned, June was only days away and I had to get the vegetables in the ground.

So, Tuesday evening I prepared my five Earthboxes: I loosened up the soil with a gardening fork, removed any roots and stalks leftover from last season, put in two cups of fertilizer in each box, installed new blag plastic covers (I used black plastic garbage bags cut to size), then filled the reservoirs with water.

Wednesday evening, I planted six Big Boy tomato plants, six red pepper plants, and three basil plants. Then, I ringed each plant with slices of Styrofoam coffee cups to keep out the snails. And I was done.

I checked the plants this morning and they survived the night.