I guess I should stop referring to the plants as "seedlings". To date, they've been out in the real world approximately 2-1/2-3 weeks? They're all doing great!
Saturday, I was conducting a close check of each plant, and came upon this totally WICKED, DEMONIC, Cutworm! I hate those things!!! I ran scrambling for my pruners to snip him in half, and then I did an even closer check on each plant. I didn't uncover any more cutworms, but took the opportunity to shore up the stems of each plant so the cutty couldn't wrap himself around and snap any stems in half.
It occurred to me there were a number of small stick pieces of pine bark in the buckets so I started using those. Unfortunately, they were too brittle and easily snapped. Then, I spied the fallen tree branches and began collecting some perfectly smooth twigs from the grass. I could easily snap them into the lengths I needed, and carefully poked them down into the soil close to each plant stem on either side. So far, I've not seen any damage or felled seedlings (some are still young enough...).
Most of the teenagers (with plant stems sturdy enough that a cutworm couldn't snap it...) are growing by leaps and bounds, and it's almost time for another feeding. I've taken my own advice (Tapla's), and have been feeding "weakly", weekly. At most, 2 small capfuls of MG Water Soluble Plant Food for Veggies and 2 capfuls of Epson Salts, in a gallon of water. Then, I divide that gallon between 3 buckets, pouring in from the top. After I've fed all the buckets, I water in with the garden hose, just until I see the first signs of any run-off out the bottom. Have I mentioned these plants will eat you out of house and home, if you let them?
Last night was our first cold snap, down to 58 degrees, with winds gusting 20-35 mph. I didn't get the hoop up before nightfall, so I'll put it up today, just to provide a windbreak. I'm never worried about the temps, 'cause, ideally, my plants are still too warm during the daytime. They need the daytime temps to be consistently in the low-50s to the mid-40s, optimally (from my past observations), with sunshine. Tonight's temps are supposed to drop down into the mid-40s.
Another observation I've made is that my cole crop broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, cabbages, and cauliflowers simply do NOT do well with full, hot sun beating down on them all day long. Bright, dappled shade, or some mild, shadowy location seems to work best. With that, I'm having to rethink my garden landscape plan, because I have the buckets sitting on the old shed footprint, that's targeted as a tomato bed in the future. But, it's on the southwestern end of the yard, and gets early, bright sun until around 10 a.m., then the hot, hot, hot, burning sun moves to the halfway point in my yard and perches there until around 5 p.m. or so. I'll need to move the tomato operation to the other side of the yard, to take advantage of that hot, bright sunshine!
Since I'm only growing about 10-15 tomato plants for myself, I might grow them in the free-draining buckets next season, so I can move them around to the most optimum locations, based on the sun patterns. Then I'll decide on the spot for a permanent raised bed... ...maybe.
"TO DO" Notes:
►I still need to pot up some LATE, LATE, Brussels Sprout transplants. Again, the seedling starter mix I'm using is the pits! That stuff gets hard as concrete. Won't be using it again...
►The Snowball Cauliflowers I scalped are growing again, and putting out new leaves. Out of the tray, I managed to save 20 seedlings. There are still about 4 more viable ones I can plant out.
►Need to plant the scalped Soloist cabbages into the EBs (DONE).
►Onion sets are on the way. Need to prep the EBs.
►Strawberry bare-root plants are on the way. Need to construct strawberry eBuckets from the 6.5 gallon pool chem buckets.
Whew!! Burning daylight!
Discussions:
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| Cole crops in shade?! by Marylyn | Oct 27, 2011 11:28 AM | 7 |
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