I know some places had snow this past week. Here, we had another light frost last night. Yes, in the desert, in May.
At least this time I was home and was able to protect the plants. Wrapped tomato plants with plastic sheeting and used styrofoam cups over the (much shorter) pepper and bush green bean plants. No losses this time.
So, between frost and dogs, it currently appears I am down to 16 tomato plants from 58 that were growing. I have more seedlings inside which I can plant out sometime soon. Started 58 more seeds tonight. Get more started soon as I can. Hate getting them going this late but still shooting for 200 total.
Things are picking up in spite of the frost. More corn, green beans and flowers coming up. See the most carrots growing that we have had any year yet. Yay!
I planted more sorghum. Hoping to find a way to process it. Even if I can't, it should offer some shade to some shorter plants. If I can get the equipment at a good price to process it, it would be a really practical crop for personal use. Seed heads can be ground into gluten-free flour and the stalks produce molasses. Or a syrup I could use for making beer. Allegedly states really good. The processed stalks would make good compost or could be used to make ethanol. It's somewhat decorative, so I planted just a few seeds in the front yard, interspersed with the giant sunflowers. If the marigolds planted in that area come up, I think it should make an interesting contrast.
I did spread thousands of flower seeds over the newly irrigated spots. These are flowers I harvested that actually grew here last year. So I'm rather confident they will come up. I have random flowers coming up where some of these grew last year.
So, still a lot of hope for the year.. if it will stop freezing!
At least this time I was home and was able to protect the plants. Wrapped tomato plants with plastic sheeting and used styrofoam cups over the (much shorter) pepper and bush green bean plants. No losses this time.
So, between frost and dogs, it currently appears I am down to 16 tomato plants from 58 that were growing. I have more seedlings inside which I can plant out sometime soon. Started 58 more seeds tonight. Get more started soon as I can. Hate getting them going this late but still shooting for 200 total.
Things are picking up in spite of the frost. More corn, green beans and flowers coming up. See the most carrots growing that we have had any year yet. Yay!
I planted more sorghum. Hoping to find a way to process it. Even if I can't, it should offer some shade to some shorter plants. If I can get the equipment at a good price to process it, it would be a really practical crop for personal use. Seed heads can be ground into gluten-free flour and the stalks produce molasses. Or a syrup I could use for making beer. Allegedly states really good. The processed stalks would make good compost or could be used to make ethanol. It's somewhat decorative, so I planted just a few seeds in the front yard, interspersed with the giant sunflowers. If the marigolds planted in that area come up, I think it should make an interesting contrast.
I did spread thousands of flower seeds over the newly irrigated spots. These are flowers I harvested that actually grew here last year. So I'm rather confident they will come up. I have random flowers coming up where some of these grew last year.
So, still a lot of hope for the year.. if it will stop freezing!
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