Garden Delays

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 Well, here we were, planning to seed our pumpkins, squash, and watermelon today, as well as put in the pepper seedlings.  Then I looked at the germination temperatures on the backs of the packages and the weather forecast and did the usual thing:  we’ll be planting next week, or later.  We usually end up putting the squashes, melons, and cucumbers in at the end of June, but each year that seems so terribly late.  And the night time temperatures are still too cold for the pepper seedlings.

Part of the reason is that we live in a bit of a valley and we get night time temperatures a few degrees cooler than our neighbors who live higher up.  (Cold air sinks, hot air rises as the children learn every year.) 

So we’ll do a bit of weeding, put some more compost on the garden, and plant some sprouted onions.  And today, on June 10, we’ll be planting watermelon seeds… inside!

We usually get good yields, even though they are limited by frosts.  Since I now have a few ‘spare’ weeks, I’ll be looking into the black plastic mulch that you can see on Laraba’s blog.  I’ve read a lot of good about plastic mulch and the commercial melon growers around here do use it.  And perhaps I’ll look into some kind of row covers or tunnels as well….

 See you tomorrow for another Tea Time with Annie Kate!