Saturday, April 7, 2012

Spring Planting Part II

This winter was incredibly mild with only one frost.  I covered the tomato plants that night and everything survived.  So, I have been holding onto my tomato plants - and the only real successful one was the Yellow plum - it is still going!  The others tried to hold on, but I believed they succumbed to root-knot nematodes - they are common in Florida soils, and are the impetus for crop rotation.  I have pictured here one of the tomatoes that I pulled up after it stopped producing well, and you can see clearly the nodules that the nematodes create when they feast on the roots of plants.



So, despite my yellow plum's continued production, I am going to start anew with tomatoes in the South bed.  Here is my master plan for planting this weekend:

I'm a little late on planting peppers and tomatoes, so I will be planting some seeds, and some starts.  
Here's what the garden currently looks like: 
large bed, with corn, sugar snaps, (volunteer) peanuts & sweet potatoes, and weeds

East bed, with carrots and last scraggly yellow plum tomato

South bed with collards, leeks, green onions, and bitter, bolting lettuce
Most of the plants should be in by the end of Easter sunday.  I'm excited for spring garden round II - it will give me time to think of a plan for the summer and the inevitable army worm onslaught.  :)  

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