Time to Heat Things Up

So, our cool wet spring hasn't been very conducive to moving our tomatoes along.  We planted several out last weekend and put plastic over their tomato cages.  It was a windy day and the tomatoes weren't hardened off.  The plastic also didn't quite enclose the tops of the cages completely.  The tomatoes were a bit shocked, but they should survive if we get some sunshine. 

The weather forecast is gloomy, so we decided to go ahead and put up greenhouses over our tomato bed and a vacant bed that we'll use to grow the rest of our tomato starts along until we find them good homes.  This morning was sunny and warm, so Terry sketched up a materials list and headed to the store for PVC piping and heavy duty plastic sheeting.

We spent the afternoon setting up the houses and transplanting starts.  My tomatoes were getting very leggy in my dining room window, so I transplanted about twenty into one gallon pots.  They needed staking and we didn't have any little stakes, so I did some quick pruning in our shrub thicket and made some.

This bed is only about 2 1/2 feet wide.  Just enough space to have plants along each wall and have a little path down the middle.  It was really toasty inside with the sun shining.  The plastic is secured to one side of the bed with bits of plywood and nails.  The other side is held down with bricks, so we can easily move them off and remove the plastic to access the plants.  The ends are just folded and secured with clamps.  On sunny warm days we can open the ends up for ventilation.

Hopefully we won't have to keep the greenhouses up all summer.  

Other garden notes:

• Lots of baby slugs- they especially like chinese cabbage and marigolds.
• One Chinese cabbage has bolted which is fine because it's slug infested anyway.
• Lots of cabbage moth eggs on my brassicas.  I squished a hundred or so eggs.  Terry killed a moth with his trusty tennis racquet.  (He bought a new racquet last year before he broke his ankle.  He has yet to actually play tennis with it.)
• Lots of rust on my older Evergreen Bunching Onions.
• Apple trees are loaded with blossoms.
• Peach tree had virtually no blooms and hardly any leaves emerging.  Nectarine tree is virtually dead.
• Grape vines are leafing out.
• Peas, Lettuce, Onions, Garlic, Parsley, Chives, Mint, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussel Sprouts are all growing nicely.
• I'm starting more flower seeds- cosmos, sunflowers, nasturtiums.
• Terry is starting more peppers- is it too late?  We'll see.