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Kitchen Garden

Plenty of Seedlings

Last Trays of Seedlings for the Garden
Last Trays of Seedlings for the Garden

With zero percent chance of precipitation until 10 p.m., I expect to finish spring planting today.

The plan developed yesterday was modified. Carmen decided there wasn’t enough soil blocking to make it worth a trip to the farm this weekend. It was alright by me. My soil blocking work is almost finished with only winter crops remaining to be started.

Except for processing quarts of soup stock in a water bath, today is planned outside until the work is done.

Turk's Turban Squash Seedlings
Turk’s Turban Squash Seedlings

The rain let up yesterday long enough to weed. Encouraged by the condition of the soil, I cleaned space in the plot under the locust tree and planted cucumbers: slicers (Marketmore, Olympian and Poinsett), Diva seedless, and pickling (Northern organic and a hybrid). I designed, built and installed new welded wire vertical cucumber cages to save garden space. It’s an experiment growing cucumbers under the locust tree, but a couple years back I tried it and the morning shade appeared to be good for the plants, protecting them from the intense and long sunny drought conditions we often find in Iowa.

Once finished with cucumbers, another short, heavy rain came through, curtailing additional outside activity for the day.

Plenty of seedlings remain to be planted, given away or composted.

The rest of Saturday was posted on Twitter: