Almost Finished Digging at the Plots!

I have spent the past two days turning over the last two big beds at the plots. I am happy to say that the only digging that I have left to do is one small bed in the back for the raspberries that have been hiding in the basement!!

Bed #3 was turned over on Thursday. This bed is 5'x 25' and will be the main tomato bed (Tomato Alley). "The Italian" informed me last night that he cut the wood to make it 5'x 26'. I don't think that it will take me more then a few minutes to turn over that extra foot!

Bed #4 was done on Friday. This bed is also 5'x 26'.

I am happy to say that 80 of the 82 strawberry roots that were planted 12 days ago are growing nicely. The remaining two may make it. I only ordered 75 so we are ahead of what I had planned. One can never have too many strawberries!

All of the broccoli plants are doing well and have new growth. 8 Calabrese and 6 Walthan 29 have been planted so far. I have a few more broccoli seedlings to plant there on Sunday.

This Cabbage is Tet Noire, seeds from Jane at "A Kitchen Garden in Khei Maui" is also showing signs of new growth. I planted 3 of this variety and 3 Red Acre. The Tet Noire leaves are bigger then the Red Acre.

3 Chiefton Savoy Cabbages were planted. They are also growing nicely.

6 Pak Choi  have been sown in between the broccoli & cabbage. They also seem very happy. I have to say that I am very pleased with everything that I have planted at the plots so far. I was a little apprehensive as to how well everything would grow since I have not added a lot of compost to the beds yet. I'm still waiting for my nephew to find me some good clean compost. I haven't found any that I feel comfortable to use there.

I finally remembered to get something to mark the plants with. I purchased 300 large Popsicle sticks at the craft store for $4. I was then able to take the plastic cups that where next to the plants out and replace them with markers!

I have met a lot of great gardeners at the plots. There is a very nice woman who will be a great help. "Whitey" the oldest gardener at the gardens, sent her over to talk to me. He says we are both Gardening Nuts!! She has been gardening there for many years and has quite an interesting gardening background. She used to tend to Mrs. Rodale's gardens at her home until she passed away. Yes, that is "The" Mrs. Rodale! I'm sure she will be very helpful since she is a completely organic gardener with many many years of experience.

Another one of the gardeners there "Bill", who is two plots to the right of us, brought me a great gift the other day....Calla Lilies! He grows them from seed and gave me 8 rhizomes each of two varieties. In the 80's & 90's I had many Calla Lilies....but one year I didn't bring them in for the winter and lost them. Since they are quite expensive I never purchased any more.



These will be planted in pots on the deck.

I would like to introduce to everyone a local gardener, Todd. He lives right here in the Lehigh Valley where we live. He has a very good, well written, informative gardening blog. Stop by his blog, BBOG, Big Blog of Gardening. He has a lot of great information to share!