More Early Planting

With Dad helping and watering, I have done a lot of planting over the past week.  It has been, perhaps, a little warmer than is typically the case for late-April, early-May, making it 99.99% safe to plant before Mother's Day...and both of us have been eager to get things in and get things growing!  You saw in my last post that we got some strawberries planted, as well as "climbing" pole beans and peas.
I have enjoyed starting many of our vegetables from seeds inside.  However, I have not been happy with the herbs and green onions -- they are so frail when started from seed, making it difficult and (I imagine) time-consuming to thin and transplant to bigger containers.  Other snafus --  I mentioned earlier that my summer squash plants had shoots that snapped easily or were too frail to withstand the early "hardening" nights out.  And my first round of zucchini seeds did not germinate, so I'm trying again with a new package of seeds.  It's been a week -- still nothing popping through.  

But a remedy to my frustration came unexpectedly.  One day last week, I had to stop by the hardware store to pick up a sliding lock for our back-yard fence gate, and their young veggie plants had just been delivered that morning.  I think I was the first person in to check them out -- and I bought summer squash, zucchini, Romaine lettuce, five types of tomatoes (Brandywine, Early Girl, Roma, grape, and Sweet 100 cherry), red and green bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, salsa peppers, eggplant, and thyme.  I didn't see some of the other herbs I wanted, but I will be stopping by Arbor Farms Nursery later this week.  My advice:  take a pass on starting herbs from seed.  My disappointment from wasting time and money on starting herb seeds is trumped by how healthy and strong the store-bought, young herbs look and how much farther along they are compared to my unidentifiable, thread-like herb seedlings.

As of today, April 7th, we are about done with planting.  I still need to get my banana peppers and four more kale plants in -- they are currently in the seedling bed, getting a little bigger before moving them to the straw.  And, of course, I'll plant more herbs as soon as I buy them.

Backyard Straw Bales DONE!!! 
Finished planting on April 6th (except for herbs on sides of bales).
Pole beans, peas, and cucumbers along back row (with trellis for vines).
Back bales (in front of beans/peas/cucumbers):  Green and red peppers,
eggplants, and Romaine lettuce: 
Front-left bale:  Kale (too small to see) and Romaine lettuce.
Front-right bale:  Strawberries.

Having read a couple of days ago that kale doesn't like a high-heat environment, I am changing plans on where to put the other four seedlings.  Instead of putting them on the south-most "front row" of the four bales behind my front flower bed shrubs (where the seedling pen is currently), I'm going to plant them on the east side of the house.  I have border shrubs and perennials there.  That side of the house gets good morning sun -- enough that the kale should do well there -- and be out of the hot, afternoon sun and heat.

So that kale will be ground-based, as will one extra yellow-squash plant and two Grape tomato plants -- extras that I separated when planting the others from their "4-pack" containers.  Today I emptied potting soil in front of the bird bath from several old hanging basket containers.  I planted the squash and tomatoes there.  I am curious to see which plants do better -- the ones in the straw bales or the ones in the ground!

Here are some pictures of the other straw bales on the front-side of the house to show you what things look like at this point:  

Front Yard:  Bales Behind Flowerbed Shrubs
Still keeping remaining seedlings there until bigger.
Back row:  Roma tomatoes
Next row:  One eggplant at edge (for trailing on ground), grape tomato,
Sweet 100 cherry tomato, jalapeno pepper, salsa pepper.
Front: Another eggplant at edge; thyme.
Since remaining kale will go on east side of house,
I'm putting other herbs on front edge with thyme.
Banana pepper seedlings will go behind herbs.

Front Yard:  Bales Beside Garage
Back Row:  Early Girl tomatoes and yellow squash..
Front Row:  Zucchini and yellow squash.
Herbs and flowers to be planted on sides.

Front Yard:  Bales Beside Front Porch
Back Row:  Brandywine tomatoes and yellow squash..
Front Row:  Zucchini and yellow squash.
Herbs and flowers to be planted on sides.

Front Yard:  Bales Beside Front Porch
Extra grape tomatoes and yellow squash planted in front of birdbath.
I also split off some young hostas and moved there too.
Only thing left to add is mulch later this week or next.