April Chores

Today my husband got going on building the compost bin and I got some transplanting chores done.  More on the compost bin when it's complete!

As I said in a previous post, our house is on the market.  There was an initial flurry of activity and showings resulted in offers 4:3.  Unfortunately, all of the deals collapsed and things are currently pretty quiet.  It seems that we will probably be staying here.  Time to get going on the garden!

Transplanted tomatoes

I started off today's chores with transplanting some of the tomato seedlings into larger pots.  6 of the Health Kick tomatoes were moved to bigger homes as well as the mixed up Gold Nugget and Sweet Million tomatoes.  Those two varieties are starting to make their identities known!

Then on to the outside transplanting.  I've been wanting to get the Copra onions in the ground but had to wait until the irrigation pond pumps were up and running.  Then of course, life got in the way with family lunches and appointments.  Today is warm but cloudy - a perfect day for transplanting.  The final 3 Lacinato kale plants found a home and I tucked 91 onion seedlings into one of the raised beds.

Onions planted

The Copra seedlings were a little larger than I usually allow them to get, but a thorough watering of the pot allowed me to gently tease them apart.  I marked out 13 rows on the bed and watered it well.  7 onions went into each row including one little guy with a not very strong root system.  We'll see how he gets on.  The rest of the seedlings were pretty robust and I firmed them into the wet soil.

Tomato cages provide protection for the seedlings

The final step was laying tomato cages over the seedlings.  This prevents neighbourhood cats (which just might include our own!) from digging and uprooting the little plants.

Onion seedling

By the time the tomatoes need their cages, the onions will be well established and not need protection.

Apple blossoms

Spring is certainly roaring on with a vengeance.  All the apple trees are bursting into blossom and the mason bees are working hard at pollinating the flowers.  As long as the weather holds, it looks like we might have a good apple crop!