Phew! What a day. Three of my friends came over this morning and all together we planted 44 tomato plants from 8:30-12:30! What a bunch of busy beavers! Janet started out the morning before the others came and screened all my vermicompost and filled three-5 gallon containers. Then Lava showed up and Janet and her put in all my amendments in each hole (I had previously dug out most of the holes and Bob Z came by yesterday and finished digging them for me-another great friend)! Then today, I could barely keep ahead of the girls, me setting out plants, making sure each plant had a drip to it, name tags, map of all the tomatoes, providing stakes and wall of waters while Lava planted them and Mernie and Janet followed up behind putting the wall of waters on all of them. Then we all had other things to do and off we all went. A wonderful day to plant- not too windy and not too hot-it was overcast! A huge thanks to Lava, Mernie and Janet for helping me today and to Bob for helping me yesterday-would of taken me days to get that far. It takes a village to do this much! Mucho gracias!
Giant pumpkin seeds planted inside-It has begun!
This year I’m planting 4 seeds for me and 2 for my giant pumpkin/squash class later this month. I planted them in 4″ peat pots and they are on a heat mat set at 80°F under grow lights until they germinate. Here is the 2013 lineup:
895 Grande 08 – 1016 Daletas x 1385 Jutras-this seed became the 2011 NM State Record
1011 Hoffman 10 – 1446.5 Werner 06 x 1180.5 Pukos 07
1111 Sawtelle 08 – 1556 Werner x sibb
1308 Todd 10 – 50 Todd x 901 Hunt- 2010 CO State Record
Three of these seeds are from Colorado and one seed from Wyoming.
So let me explain what each name means for those of you interested in giant pumpkin growing as each seed name gives important information.
Let’s take the 895 Grande 08. This seed came from an 895 LB pumpkin and the grower’s last name is Grande and was grown in 2008. The rest of the information is the genealogy of the 895 Grande that I’ve provided. So 1016 Daletas was the mother plant and was a 1016 LB pumpkin and the grower was Daletas and no year given. The father plant (pollinator) was 1385 Jutras. So this pumpkin weighed 1385 LBS and the grower was Jutras with no year given.The reason you should go back and look at the parents is you can see that the 895 came from some huge pumpkins.
The 895 Grande produced my NM Giant Pumpkin State Record of 448 LBS back in 2011. Last year I grew the 448 Cabossel 11 (nicknamed MAX) but didn’t break my previous record so I’m going back to the parent 895 Grande to try again. My record gotten broken last year. The current record is 530 LBS so I’ll try to regain the State Record this year! Notice I’m also growing seeds from much bigger pumpkins as well but with our short growing it is very hard as I lose about a month of time other growers get. Wish me luck!
Soil temperature is Important When Planting Tomatoes
Now is the time to start planting our tomatoes and other warm season veggies outside in our gardens. So often we concentrate on only the air temperature to decide when to plant these crops but the soil temperature is actually just as important. Tomatoes should be planted when the soil temperature reaches a minimum of 60°F in the daytime. If you plant too early in cold soil, tomato (and pepper) seedlings sulk and will not be happy. Root development is very slow and the roots have difficulty absorbing nutrients. The plants could show phosphorus deficiency which shows up as stunted plants with purple leaves on the underside. If your plants get this, top dress them with some powdered rock phosphate and water in. Nothing is gained from planting too early in the ground. This may account for why we always seem to get the bulk of our tomatoes in August and not earlier when planted outside no matter when we plant. The tomatoes will just sit there until the soil temperature is optimum.
To measure the soil temperature, use a soil thermometer. I prefer using a compost thermometer because they are much longer, usually around 24″ and can be used to check both the temperature of my compost pile and the soil in my vegetable bed before I plant tomatoes. Remember to push it in deeper into your bed as the tomato plant won’t be in the top 3″ but more likely planted deeper where the soil is cooler. I find the short soil thermometers just aren’t long enough to measure the soil temperatures more than about 5 inches and quite often I plant tomatoes much deeper. I got my compost thermometer online but I recently saw some at Payne’s Nursery here in Santa Fe.
To warm up soil sooner, you can put black plastic over the bed to pre-warm the soil. I use black plastic garbage bags that I tack down with rocks. That way I can reuse the bags later instead of buying a roll of black plastic. Leave it on for 1-2 weeks and take the temperature to see when the soil warms up to the optimum temperature. Many warm season vegetables could benefit from planting in warmer soil.
Here is a chart I found from Farmerfredrant giving the optimum soil temperatures for planting vegetables. I’m showing it here but also listed it as a pdf (soil temperatures for veggie seeds ) so you can print it out as well.
Sonny: 2009-2013
I have 3 pet goats down at the barn-2 girls and a boy. Sonny, my male dwarf Nigerian Goat had to be put down at 9 pm on Sunday evening. He was only 4 years old. We found him on the ground writhing in pain and screaming about 8pm when we went to put them to bed. He was fine in the morning. He was fine at 4 pm. Just fine. It is unbelievable that in 4 hours he would collapse in such intense pain and have to be put down. I don’t know how long he had been down but they say that once a goat goes down with bloat, they only have a couple of hours before they die. I called my farm vet and we brought Sonny to the vet’s house that night. Lucky for me, Dr. Callahan, who owns Pecos Veterinary Clinic, actually lives right off 285 and close to El Dorado so the drive was short. Dr. Callahan is an angel to let me come to his house on a Sunday night. I had to save Sonny the only way I could–to put him out of his misery–to save him from any more pain. How short life can be. It’s a shame it was snatched from Sonny at such a young age.
I really loved Sonny. He was such a character with his ‘sparky’ personality. More like a firecracker. He would leap and twist in the air almost clicking his heels like a Leprechaun when dinner was served. He would like to boss his sister goats, Bella Rosa and Hunwee around and try to hog all the food and attention. Everyone thought he was pregnant he was so fat. He was a great companion to his sister goats who are missing him too-we are all in shock now. But he was like a puppy dog too, following me around, stopping to lean on me hoping for a scratch between his horns- always coming up to greet me. He would act all brave and macho until a dog would come to the outside of the corral fence and then he would freeze and get all shaky, hiding behind Bella Rosa who is black and is a quiet strong goat. We all know who really runs that group and it wasn’t Sonny. Nevertheless he was a pistololi, a loose cannon with a fun-loving attitude. I’m going to miss that little guy-my handsome boy.
10 things to do in May
NO, this IS NOT what my garden looks like right now-I WISH! This is the garden in early June in 2010.
Here are 10 OUT OF 100 things you could do in your garden in May. GET BUSY-9 DAYS TILL MAY 15th!
-Water, water, water–all existing trees, bushes, fruits and vegetables–we’ve had a very dry winter-everything is parched!
-Clean up any perennial beds from the fall if you haven’t already.
-Add composted (aged, old, cold) horse manure to your vegetable beds/turn over.
-Check/install/hook-up drip systems for vegetable beds. Get replacement parts as needed.
-Buy any last-minute seeds/or any vegetable starts you don’t have but still want.
-Buy those wall of waters for your tomatoes and row cover BEFORE you plant tomatoes.
-Transplant up any veggie you bought that is now too small for its pot.
-Buy any amendments, fertilizers and supplies you will need when planting.
-Harden off your plants before putting them outside in the garden.
-Fertilize with fish emulsion and seaweed any cool season crops you have. Start to harvest when ready.
-After May 15th, it should be safe to plant warm season crops-go for it!
OK- these are 11 things but like I said, there are probably 100 things we could do in the garden right now!!
Tomato Class Review
Yesterday, Duskin Jasper and myself taught a 2-hour tomato class intensive at Milagro Community Garden to about 35 gardeners where we talked about planting and caring of tomatoes. In it we talked about what general amendments to add to your vegetable beds, how to plant tomato transplants, what amendments to add to each hole to boost tomato production, benefits of adding mycorrhizal, pruning techniques, benefits of adding Epsom Salts and dry milk when planting tomatoes, tomato deficiencies and tomato diseases. We also gave a demo in actual planting of these tomatoes and how to use and install Wall of Waters (to sneak your tomatoes in before the last frost date) and benefits of using row cover. Thanks to all for coming!
Here are my handouts as we ran out of them for those of you looking for them:
Strawberry Beds-Spring Cleanup
strawberry bed in spring with row cover ready to cover when it freezes
Yesterday I raked out all the old leaves from my strawberry bed and sprinkled some fertilizer (I use yum-yum mix) and a fine layer of compost over the bed. This is the first year I’ve done anything for it in about 3 years and I noticed last year my strawberries were smaller so hopefully this will help.
The patch looks pretty rough and dry, dry dry so I watered heavily for about 1 hour after adding the amendments to give it a good drink. I did water it 2x during the winter but we didn’t get any appreciable snow this year so I hope it rebounds. I’ll also need to put the row cover back on tonight as it is supposed to get down to 29-28°F the next two nights as a few plants are already flowering—the cold will kill them if I don’t cover them.
