Lettuce

A quick update on the lettuce. Above you can see the lettuce started back on Feb. 13th. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can get the lettuce in the garden next weekend. Knowing that we'll put the first round of lettuce in the garden soon we're already started more lettuce for round 2.

Moving On Up

We continue to repot plants into larger containers. Zinnias are looking really good and in the new pots they should have plenty of room to grow. The daisies are a little bit slower with their growth, but they are getting a new home as well. So today we moved the plants with at least 2 sets of true leaves on to bigger living quarter and got even more seeds started. We've got the seed starting process down to a fine art - more newspaper pots and lots more potting soil.

Standing Water

It has been a different kind of winter this year. February brought a record amount of snow for the Columbus area - over 30 inches. So.....as the snow has melted with the warm weather there has been standing water at the Epworth Veggie Garden. It's always a good idea to scout out the garden when we've had lots of rain and as the snow melts so you can see area of the garden that needs work. Hopefully this spring we can amend the soil with compost and continue to level out the garden.

Maple Grove Garden

We had a brief meeting over at Maple Grove UMC this evening. Checked out the garden to see how much snow is on the ground.

Epworth Veggie Garden

The snow is slowly starting to melt. Hopefully by the end of the week all the snow will have melted in the garden. Because of all the snow we've had this year, it will probably be close to the first of April before we can work the soil. I'm sure there will be places where water is standing in the garden and we'll need to come back and add compost and maybe a bit of peat to amend the soil.

Tomato Seeds

A few of us have talked about having a contest to see who can grow the biggest tomato (by weight). There are so many different varieties of tomatoes from cherry to supersteak and red to yellow. During the off season, I've been reading a little about some supersteak varieties and decide this year I'd try the Porterhouse variety from Burpee's. The description says that you can expect tomatoes between 2 to 4 lbs. We'll see what happens.

Transplanting Time

Now is the time for some of the plants to get a new home. I transplanted most of the zinnias to a bigger container this afternoon. The zinnias are looking really good. I probably should have started them a bit later in the season (and the pansies earlier!), but a lot of things become a bit of an experiment. I also thinned and moved some of the lettuce into larger containers so they can continue to grow as well. I hope that the soil will be ready to plant some of the cool weather plants like lettuce around the first of April. We still have some snow on the ground. I'm sure the soil, which is mostly clay, is wet.