Peppers and Tomatoes

Saturday was the first day I worked up a sweat in the spring garden. I moved storage items around and contemplated where I should bury the potato containers. The fence around the southwest plot needs to come down, and ground cover taken up. The layout will be changed to accommodate six potato containers, mowing around the apple tree, and placing the large compost bin made of old pallets. There will be space leftover. It will be an awkwardly shaped space.

Potatoes do better when there is a fence around them to keep deer away. If I can find mulch to put around them, they won’t need much besides water and pulling a few weeds. I must remain vigilant to see if the Colorado Potato Beetle arrives. The insect hasn’t been around the last few years.

I moved chard, collards, and fennel seedlings into larger pots to allow them to grow. I also thinned the bok choy family of seedlings to one sprout per block. One never knows how older seeds will perform so I doubled up. About half the celery seeds germinated. I’m not sure if twelve plants will be enough and I may plant more.

How many varieties of pepper seedlings should be planted? I cut back. Using the remaining bell pepper seeds from last year, I may not attempt to grow them again. With nice bell peppers available year-around at the wholesale warehouse, I am less worried about my failure to grow good bell peppers. The rest of the peppers are Serrano, Jalapeno, and a variety of long, red hot peppers for drying and converting into red pepper flakes. Reducing the variety aligns with how I use them. If I want a specialty pepper, I can likely get them at the farmers’ market.

The most important annual crop is tomatoes and I cut back the number of varieties this year. I’m a bit nervous about that with three varieties of plum, three slicers, and five cherries. For fresh eating, we tend to consume more cherry tomatoes than slicers. Both are reasons to grow a summer garden. The plums are mostly for canning whole or as sauce. There can never be enough of those.

I collected fallen branches and twigs from the yard and started a burn pile. I’m running behind on that, yet there is not a lot to burn. All the same, spring gardening has begun. It will be a constant activity from now until Memorial Day.