The Newfarm Forums

[Larry & Twila]

Mother Nature threw us a curveball this week with a frost on Monday morning. The actual temperature was 33 on the deck but you could see the frost on the ground. The garden looked like a JC Penny white sale. blankets and sheets all over the place. We cover the peppers eggplant ant the largest potatoes with blankets and sheets. We covered all 150 tomatoes with plastic grocery bags. We slipped the bags over the tomato stakes and covered the plants. There was a little frost damage to the leaves touching the plastic bags but they should recover nicely.
We have been very happy with the hairy vetch we had as a winter cover crop. We mowed it off, drill into the stubble and plant our transplants. The soil in those beds are really active with worms so that will be our major winter cover crop in the future.
The onions are bulbing up, this will be the best onion crop we've ever grown and I attribute that to planting them last Fall.
We 've also started selling lots of baby lettuce, and in fact decided to plant another bed to extend the spring lettuce crop.
The soil has stayed a little cooler than normal and we've had spotty germination of the seeds we planted, beans, cucs and melons. We may have to replant some of those crops if we don't see sprouts soon.
The bees they are a swarming!! I think with the mild wet weather we had this spring, it was perfect for bees to swarm. I asked an oldtime beekeeper and he has had the same problem. So now we have to hope the hives build back up, make new good queens and still make us a honey crop.
Only one crop left to plant, sweet potatoes and that should be done next week.