Today you get a twofer: two weeks worth of garden diary info compressed into one entry.
We had uncooperative weather again the past couple of weeks; but that’s par for the course in Central texas this time of year, and the veggie garden team pushed on through the storm (well crazy weather anyway).
In the row garden we amended a row in preparation for planting tomatoes next month after the average date of last frost. Unfortunately, weeds don’t really care about frosts and are already starting to show in the row garden. Nut sedge has been especially bad this spring and we have been trying to keep it under control so that it doesn’t become a worse problem for us later in the year. It is worst in the area between the rows so we are taking steps to get more mulch laid down there.
Both nut sedge and Bermuda grass have been problematic in the raised beds. We have been pulling them out by the roots and preparing most of the beds for planting with spring veggies after the average date of last frost. We’re not quite there yet, since the average frost-free date here is in early March, but we did plant some late winter/early early spring veggies in the raised beds. We have planted peas ( a couple of times, since they didn’t make the first time), as well as marigolds (for companion planting), spinach, chard, lettuce, cabbage, radishes and onions. This has made it necessary to hand-water many of the veggies and seedlings until they get established. In fact, we are going to change the irrigation system in a couple of the beds this coming week, so hand-watering is all the water those beds have received except for a little rain. In order to help the beds retain moisture between watering, we have mulched several of them with pine straw. A lot of the seedlings have needed thinning the past couple of weeks, so we’ve spent some time doing that. We’ve also fertilized many of the seedlings. In addition, we have prepared a bed for tomatoes by working in some fertilizer and granular molasses.
The demonstration garden is located north of the Williamson County Extension Office driveway at 3151 SE Innerloop Road, Georgetown, Texas. Master gardeners are usually at work in the vegetable garden on Tuesday and Friday mornings from 9:00 to 11:00. Anyone is welcome to stop by to see the garden or to ask questions of the master gardeners.
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