PumpkaMelon

Baby Bear pumpkin - this is the kind for eatin'

Transplanted my "Baby Bear" and "Jack-O-Lantern" pumpkins along with my various watermelon seedlings into the new "tomato beds".  Did some brief research and it sounds like the main thing is to not disturb the roots too much when transplanting - I took extra special care and only broke up the bunch when necessary.  Fed the transplants with some Neptune's Harvest to get them off to a good start.

The plan is that these vining plants will grow at the feet of the tomato plants they share the bed with.  The tomatoes are North of the pumpkin, watermelon and cantaloupe and as such they shouldn't shade them out.  Combine that with the heavy pruning and eventual plant to keep a 20" branch-free space on the tomatoes and I think these new transplants will receive plenty of light.

watermelon transplants

Duck Update
The ducks are rad, they crack me up!  "Tweak" (temporary name for the neurotic Pekin) is eagerly eating out my hand finally, even though he stops to scream at me and spits the food he was in the process of eating.  I've been putting them outdoors in a small pen, letting them forage in the web grass, soak in their water bowl, see other animals, smell smells - just basically be animals.  I move the pen each day so that they are fertilizing multiple areas of the grass that will soon be their entire run.  I plant to make their short (24") fence out of recycled pallets - more on that later.

Zucchini makes Chui very nervous, VERY nervous!

Tomato Rescue

transplanted real deep, about 8 inches down.  Once they begin to grow a
bit I will trim off the lower branches to reduce the chance of soil born
disease and pests.

Transplanted17 various tomato plants into EW2 (north half).  I say various not because I desire variety or intra-bed mixing but because I'm an idiot and I mixed them all up one day and now can't tell which is which.  I have 6 different species of tomatoes and I honestly can't tell them apart.  So... it'll be a surprise, like having a baby and not finding out the sex.  Just like that.

We had about 1/10" of rain last night and I setup 10 buckets and a (clean) trash can under the drip line of my back patio cover.  After combining the rain contents all the buckets into the trash can I'd say I scored about 28 gallons of rain water.  I've been reading lately that the chlorine or, more likely, chloramine (ammonia and chlorine - yay!) may not be the best thing for plants, especially food crops and young ones at that.  I'm not about to run out and install a filter or anything, but if I can catch some rain water I figure it's an easy way to give the plants a fresh drink of good ol', straight up water.  Of course there is the residue from the roof which for all I know is asbestos based or something - You can't win!

I pulled the last of my first golden beets, combined with a zucchini and a few green onions made a nice side dish for dinner.  I sauteed the beat tops and threw in four zucchini blossoms.  Pretty tasty and about as fresh as you can get.

Potting Up Tomatoes

The tray of leggy, indoor started tomatoes.  They have

good color but are definitely stretching for the light

I had started some tomatoes a while back and they failed miserably!  I attribute this to a few poor decisions with a dusting of newbie-ness:

1. I started them too early
2. I kept them too wet
3. I didn't "pot-up" or transplant

I love tomatoes and am looking forward to growing them more than anything so you can imagine how disappointing it was to have my first attempt at growing from seen fail so badly.  I did some research and armed myself with more knowledge for my second attempt.

I placed a small amount of home-blend seed starter
then backfilled carefully to firm up the soil

One important step that I missed was the "potting up" or transplanting to larger containers as they grew.  Actually, it's not that I DIDN'T do this, but I did it incorrectly.  Tomatoes will grow new roots from the step when you bury it.  When you transplant a tomato plant you can bury it right up to it's cotyledon (seed leaves) and it will kick out new roots from the stem.  This results in a stronger plant with more vigorous root system.  It also addresses the "leggy problem" that can happen when growing indoors with insufficient light. Furthermore you can prune the lower branches and transplant the plant very deep to encourage additional root growth.  Another method is to plant them horizontally and the buried part of the step will root.

A good 2" of stem buried and if these things do what
everyone says they do then it should root from the stem

So I took about an hour work work Tonight and transplanted most of my seedlings from their cell tray into 2.75" organic pots.  The process was rewarding as the seedlings were leggy and weak when in the cells, but after transplanting they just... looked healthier and stronger.

Once they were transplanted I watered them in thoroughly and put out for a bit of late afternoon sun. Now they are back in the safety of the growing room (my extra bathroom) and I will begin hardening them off over the next couple weeks.

Back in the grow room with 14 of light a day

By the way, I have included a link on my blog's "links widget" to a concise and simple article explaining in more detail the steps I basically did here.