Planting complete!

Everything is planted! Well, almost. One pepper got left out because I couldn't find the right place, and I'll probably get one or two more tomatoes if I find varieties that I'm missing (one for drying, a black tomato). I spent about a week rearranging post-it notes on a 4x4 grid that I made up, and then ended up diverging quite a bit from my carefully laid plan once I saw how all the plants were fitting together, and noticing where I could squeeze in just a few more plants!

I'm hoping that the pecan tree doesn't shade the east bed too terribly much once it finishes leafing out. I knew that it wouldn't get quite as much sun as the west bed, but I think the pecan may have grown more than I expected since I was laying out where to put the beds late last summer.



So, here we are. Week Zero. It was partly sunny when I planted everything, and I was worried about the sun drying out the tender transplants and cooking all seedlings before they could get established. I looked for an inexpensive shade cloth before I planted today, but couldn't find what I wanted. I decided a light layer of hay would provide some shade to the transplants until their roots could get established and would help keep moisture in the soil for sprouting the seeds.

I'm going to need shade cloth by early summer anyway. Hopefully I can keep my lettuces from bolting and extend the season for radishes by a few weeks.

After I finished all the planting, I sat down with my iPod Touch and seed packets, counted out all the estimated harvest dates, and set them all as appointments in my calendar! So nerdy, but so incredibly satisfying. Radishes will be up first, on May 11.