Memorial Day Gardening

With all the irons in the fire that I have going on I've been a longtime user of black plastic mulch.  After reading about all the benefits such as early warming of the soil, weed suppression. & water conservation I felt the benefits outweighed the plastic controversy about landfill and petro production to make the stuff. Every year I recycle the previous seasons plastic by putting in the pathways and using a new layer for the current seasons garden beds.

With that out of the way, for the past couple of weeks I amended the soil with some fast acting lime, compost, soilless mix from  last years  containers, composted manure and a small amount of time release 10-10-10.

Now, armed and ready to put the plastic down,  I felt like I'm all dressed up with no where to go waiting for some natural rainfall before putting the plastic down.  I was getting concerned with the water deficit that we were having in CT this year until this weekend. Wow, what a godsend. The water fell from the chilly sky's on Friday evening  into Saturday and soaked the ground with upwards of 3" of rain. Down went the plastic and in went a variety of  tomatoes  including,  Cherokee Chocolate, Brandywine, Yaki (a new hybrid plum) Roma, Big Raspberry, Better Boy, and 1st Prize. As far as cucurbit family goes, in went Pic n Pic yellow squash, Black beauty zucchini,  Early Bush and Marketmore cucumbers. I'm holding off on eggplant and peppers until sometime in June. I find it better to wait nighttime temps consistently in the 60's before setting these plants.

Until  next post- Happy Gardening and keep checking back on my super hot pepper progress.