Garden Updates: Warm Weather Plantings

I put the warm weather plants in the ground the weekend of Mother's Day.  That is the generally accepted planting time in this area, and I was happy that the garden was ready by this time, since I had only just turned it over a few weeks before.

The peppers were a touch on the small side when they went into the ground, but they did have a couple sets of true leaves so I wasn't too concerned.  Maybe next year I will start them sooner so they have time to size up before planting.  I started with five each of red, yellow and green pepper plants.

 

The tomatoes were begging to be planted when I got to put them out.  I was afraid that if I had waited any longer, they would become root bound and go into shock when I planted them.  The way it worked out seemed to be perfect timing for them - they never skipped a beat after going into the garden.  I am also happy that I was able to put their cages in at the same time.  Had I waited long, I never would have gotten the cages around them.

 

On the other side of the tomatoes I put up a bean trellis, cucumber cages and a row of squash.  All of these were planted as seeds and seemed to have a hard time getting started this year, probably due to a cold spell that hit the week after I planted everything.  We actually had one last snow flurry near the end of May that didn't damage any of the actual plants, but may have killed off the sprouting seedlings in this bed.  Only four bean plants came up and only one squash.  I had to replant the entire section of the garden with beans, cucumbers and squash....I even had to replant one of the squash hills a third time because I must have used some old seeds.  Needless to say, this end of the garden got off to a late start this year!