Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Fuzzy,

Every time I plant greens (spring and fall) I plant a zig zag row about 10" apart, with a strip of T-tape (a type of soaker hose) down the center, then I lay a 3' wide piece of thin Agribon over it, and seal around the edges, on one long edge with soil, and on the ends and other side with anything I can find to lay on it. This helps prevent damage from spring rains, but the main purpose is to keep rabbits from destroying the seedlings. It also keeps bugs off, but I have to sprinkle on sluggo, before planting, as they come out of the ground. Look out for rabbits - they can destroy seedlings in a few hours.

Beautiful sunny day here today. Went out to check my herb patch to see if the chives were coming back and LO & BEHOLD a spot of green and it's my tarragon. Never had that before. I'm thrilled. Deep freeze predicted for tonight or tomorrow so I'll dig up the tarragon and bring it in for a while. Pear and magnolia trees are in full bloom all over the city and it's beautiful. Hope the freeze passes us by. Nothing sadder than frozen magnolia blossoms. Daffodils all over the yard. Lilacs and peonies showing signs of life. Love this time of year.

fitzie

Fitzie,

That's great that your tarragon came up! It's one of the first perennials to show up every year in my garden. I have never had to dig them up to prevent being damaged by freezing, and they are almost always exposed to it, at least briefly, after coming up.

Today I got my garden tilled, and later got my greens planted and covered (to stop rabbits, mainly). I have 3 varieties of kohlrabi planted, and komatsuna, senposai (komatsuna x cabbage), Zen tatsoi (tatsoi x komatsuna), bok choy, 3 varieties of leaf lettuce, chard, and minutina. Anybody grow or eat minutina before? This is the only new green for me this season.

Dave,

Fortunately rabbits are not a real issue in my neighborhood, mostly because of the sheer number of indoor/outdoor cats. Squirrels, however, are a menace.

I declared war on squirrels many years ago, when I kept finding tomatoes on the ground with a bite out of them, and eventually I found that it was squirrels doing this. That first year, I trapped over 50 squirrels, next year 20 something, and eventually I got down to about 6 a year. I haven't been able to trap rabbits - nothing really seems to attract them, like peanut butter with squirrels.

Last night I got all of my tomato, pepper, and tomatillo seeds planted!

For a bit of fun, I put up a live temperature monitor of my garden soil.

https://io.adafruit.com/Mr_Paul/garden-temp#

Stitched out the scale little, stopped overwhelming the service with data; by tomorrow there should be 24 hours showing! And we can see how cold it gets here at night, soil wise (about 2.5" down)

Earthbox problem,
I developed a blossom end rot on my tomatoes this year. Last year (my first year with these) was fine. I have read about using pickling lime for a quick fix but I am past that point. Any other pointers?