April Showers...

March had given me a glimmer of hope... maybe the last frost will be a month early this year! Then came April. Not just rain showers, but plenty of hail showers and a snow shower too! There was an almost two week stretch where nighttime temps would reach freezing every night. This led to a bit of a gardening slump. At the beginning of the month I finished up all of the winter sowing that I could do. Then came the bad weather, so I couldn't get out in the garden much. It was mostly a time of waiting.

APRIL 1
- Tried transplanting one Oregon Spring Tomato with frost protection... still died a few days later.
- Started hardening off all of the tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, dill, and cilantro. This was also done too early since the weather turned ugly for the rest of the month.
- Winter sowed more amaranth (the direct sown have not yet germinated and the indoor sown have no true leaves yet).

APRIL 4
Amaranth outside finally sprouting! Later each and every one of these dies. =(

APRIL 6
Indoor sowed in peet pots:
Japenese egglpant - apparently it is too late, but I am going to try anyway.
Tomato, Double Rich and Sweet 100 - Timing looks pretty good, decent size by time I transplanted, but not leggy like the earlier ones. Was given free seeds for the hybrid, so don't really know what is going to grow.
Pepper, Cubanelle, hot thai, and hungarian hotwax - Good healthy looking plants, but small. In the future will start same time as the mini yellow bell.

Winter sowed lots of free seeds received from SASBE... only a few of them actually came up. The successes were:
Sweet William
Blue Sage
Lemon Mint
Garlic (from seed... don't know if it will make cloves or not)
Goatsbeard

APRIL 7
Direct sowed:
Space Hybrid Spinach - spinach performing well
Mangold WIterbi Chard - lots sprouted, then my dog walked on them and there are only two left. something keeps eating the leaf tips, so they are very slow to grow... still less than 1" tall.

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I stopped journaling at this point, so don't have the germination date or even direct sowing dates for a lot of the plants. Here are some pictures from the rest of the month.

Winter Sowing... can see sprouting Pak Choi, Broccoli, and Sunflowers
Shallots were brought inside when it started hailing
Perennial bed doesn't seem to be quite as upset by the freezing temperatures as the vegetables

A few veggies are standing their ground

Amaranth Doomed to Failure?

I don't know what it is about this plant, but I am starting to wonder if I will see any of my starts mature into a plant this summer! I have sown it every way: indoors, winter sown, and direct sown.

Direct sowing is out the window for next year. It took close to a month for the amaranth to germinate (the first two weeks of which were great weather), then when it did come up, the germination rate was very low. About a week and a half later all but two shrivled up in some hot weather (even with a healthy watering that morning).

Winter sowing went okay, again they were slow to germinate, popping up a few weeks after the direct sown ones. Now they are staying small. We will have to see how they compare to the indoor sown ones later in the season.

So far my indoor sown ones look the best. They are by far the largest with one set of true leaves fully open and a second set peaking out. Both other methods of sowing are yet to show even a hint of true leaves. I just planted out one of my indoor sown seedlings after hardening it off for several days. So far it looks pretty good, other than being a little leggy.

As of yesterday there were two direct sown (the smallest), two winter sown (sturdy but small), and one indoor sown (much further along growth wise) in a row in the garden. This morning I went out to check on all the plants and water where needed. When I arrived at the amaranth I only saw two seedlings left. Both of the direct sown and one of the winter sown had been hewn off at the stem base! Thankfully I have a few more winter sown still sitting in their plastic conatiner and I have one more indoor still in its peet pot. I have not had any cutworms and did not find one when I dug down underneath the plants. Who knows what did it, but if it keeps up I will soon be calling it quits for the amaranth.