April 2015 - Unseasonably Warm!

In all the stores selling vegetable plants you can see tomatoes, peppers and basil for sale.  With the wonderfully warm weather we've been getting this year, it's very tempting for a novice gardener to put these plants outdoors - after all, if they're selling them, it must be okay to put them out, right?  Not so.  These plants don't go outside until we have reliable nighttime temperatures of 10C.  And as for the basil, you don't dare plant it out until June as it's very touchy to cool weather.

My tomato and pepper plants are happily spending their time in the potting shed.  I'm not worried if the tomatoes get a little "leggy" as I can plant them right up to the bottom set of the first true leaves.  In the meantime, I'm making sure that their new homes outside will be ready for them when the time comes.  I've always known that tomatoes and potatoes are from the same family, but I recently learned that peppers come from this family as well.  This totally blows my garden plan right out the window as you shouldn't really plant these in the same bed in successive years.  Crop rotation means that you should wait until at least one year before planting in the same bed as a family member again.  So it's back to the drawing board!

The onions and leeks have now been planted and as I don't think I'll have enough Copra Onions from what I seeded, I picked up a package of yellow onion sets to fill up the bed.  This year I've planted Chinook Leeks in addition to Bandit.  Chinook are a summer harvest leek while Bandit is good in the cold weather.  Both are protected by pieces of fencing in case cats decide to try out the lovely loose soil!

The leeks are looking wonderful.  Last year I purchased 3 bulbs from Salt Spring Seeds to go with those I've saved from last year's harvest.  Leningrad, Czech and Spanish Roja are at the right of the garlic bed.  Leningrad has enormous cloves - there were only 4 on the bulb!

This year we took out one bed of asparagus and replaced it with new rootstock.  The older bed that remains is starting to show the first new spears and I've already helped myself to one delicious snack of raw asparagus!  The tiny seedlings at the left bottom of the picture are dill seedlings.  I finally have dill volunteers established in my asparagus after years of trying.  They are good companion plants and the dill keeps away the asparagus beetle.

In the snow pea bed, the young plants are just starting to climb their zig zag fence.  Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce plants have been nestled in the gaps.

When I turned over last year's Pacific Russet Potato bed, I discovered that one plant hadn't been dug up!  I found at least 9 lovely potatoes which had already started to sprout and moved them to a new home.  7 of the 9 plants are above the ground now and doing well.  We were very impressed with this potato last year and are delighted at the jump we've gotten on the potato season.  Another bed has Seiglinde Potatoes planted from purchased seed potatoes.

All in all, the garden is doing well.  It's very tempting to push the season and set out plants early, but I'm trying my best to avoid the urge.  And May isn't that far away after all!