What did you do in the garden today?

[PopoMyers]

Trees were pruned yesterday. I have some onion starts growing inside under lights, and have been trimming them back to 3" every so often. Before today, the ground had heavy frost, and the spigots had frozen. The girls' water bucket lines had also frozen, so they were not refilling. Let a faucet trickle into a pan so they can have more water.

 

[cj2024]

I insulated my Kratky buckets with aluminum bubble wrap and covered the top of the bucket with plastic. I found that 4 pieces of two-sided tape was enough to hold the plastic in place, and it makes it easier to open the buckets. I learned the hard way after duck taping the plastic to the bucket, then I had to add nitrogen to it. I was trying out Maxi Bloom from the start, but it's made for the bloom stage, so my tomato plants looked light green. They are turning greener with the nitrogen adjustment.

I will leave 4 buckets without the aluminum bubble wrap to see if I need it or not. In addition, I will string a trellis sideways next to the buckets and clip the plants to the netting. I will also string a trellis overhead and stop pruning the indeterminate coral cherry tomatoes when it reaches it.

 

[cj2024]

My red snapper tomatoes are setting fruit under the insect netting, and they look healthy without any bugs. They are drinking about a gallon of water a day, so I refill every 3 days.

 

[Smokerbill]

Seeds are sprouting.



Jalapeno seeds I bought last year are in the 6 connected peat pots, and the row of 4 pots has seeds I saved from a habanero pepper and some Hatch chili peppers I bought for making salsa last summer. Some of each are coming up.



The black containers (tubs from storebought fresh mushrooms) contain yellow onion and shallot seeds, and both of those are starting to come up too.

 

[CatInTheHenHouse]

Happy National Seed Swap Day! I haven’t found any local swaps in my area for today but I finally packaged up the catnip seeds in the fridge and will be carting most of them to one of my local seed libraries today.

 

[Smokerbill]

In the garden, my garlic is hanging in there in spite of the cold. The onion and shallot seedlings from seed I planted last fall are also surviving.

 

[cj2024]

I found out that my Kratky tomato plant needs 800-1,200 ppm of nutrient solution. I should have looked it up instead of shooting from the hip. The direction on the maxi bloom fertilizer was vague, especially because I am mixing 20 gallons at a time. It says 1 to 2 tsp per gallon of water on the label.

 

[cj2024]

I tried out my new clef graft machine on 4 branches, and it was amazing. It's a game changer for home gardeners. I will try it on some tomato plants next. I got it from amazon.

 

[TJAnonymous]

It was nice today. Sunny and mid 50s. I finally decided to take advantage of the weather and try to get my grapes under control. DH helped me put up some welded wire arches. I'm hoping these will act as supports to allow the cordons to grow up and over them instead of just along the fence line. There's just too much growth for the fence alone to contain it so it's spilling over into my raised beds which are directly in front of the fence. I also started doing a major pruning on them because they're just a hot mess. I only got the pruning about half done. I'll finish the rest tomorrow.

I really badly need to prune my roses too. They are simply out of control as well but every time I prune a rose bush, it dies afterwards. Yes, I am cleaning and bleaching tools before doing it.... Hasn't mattered.

I still have a lot of garden clean-up to do. Asparagus beds need cleared. In-ground garden area needs cleared of weeds, then leaf mulch added and layered cardboard. I'm trying to kill off the weeds in there before spring so DH doesn't have to till it. There's also a really bad invasive vining plant that keeps trying to invade my garden from the pasture side. It's going to take some real elbow grease to rip it all out before stuff comes out of dormancy. It's hasn't died over winter but just keeps on spreading.

 

[cj2024]

I tried out my new clef graft machine on 4 branches, and it was amazing. It's a game changer for home gardeners. I will try it on some tomato plants next. I got it from amazon.
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I ordered some "Super Strong Tomato Root Stock" for grafting a few years ago, I hope they are still viable. I want to try grafting a determinate tomato plant onto a super strong indeterminate tomato root stock, using my new cleft grafting machine. The plant supposed to retain the scion's disease resistance plus the resistance from the root stock and give the plant more vigor.