Was able to get to my plot and prepare it for summer. One of first plantings I did was direct sow trial of mostly tomatoes, but some peppers, eggplants and ground cherries just to get idea how they work. Ground cherries will easily produce, but question is how I will manage them with weeds. Peppers and eggplants are very uncertain, but I have been surprised before how fast direct sown plants can grow so ofcourse I have to try. Tomatoes are mostly of F2s from 3 different F1 crosses. There is also some siberian early as comparison. Black plastic is there to heat ground same as cloth for first weeks. One line of siberian early is without black plastic and cloth to get some idea how they will fare naturally. I think it should be possible to get some ripe fruits and atleast ripe seeds, but in larger scale I rather not have lotâs of green fruits to ripen indoors. Tomatoes Iâm expecting to carry on direct sowing all F2+ next years, but if all goes well I will do some bigger trial with peppers and eggplants as well. Weather has been nice for last week with temps up to +20C (68F) and nights creeping closer to +10 (50F). Couple cooler days ahead with possible frosts and after that it seems like we are getting early summer with highs of low 20s C (low 70s F) and nights around +10 (50F). Itâs first warmer than average may in 5 years and very welcome considering the amount of iffy trials I have planned for this year.
Moved yesterday most of my transplants besides sweet potatoes outdoors on top of beds where Iâll plant sweet potatoes. Plastics and cloth have been there for a week to warm up the ground so that it stays warmer than outside. Last night at official temperature measurment was +5C (41F) with and ground level just above freezing at +0.7C (34F). Not sure how cold it got at my plot, but itâs not that much warmer there. Plants look good and now they have atleast 16h of sunlight per day to grow before I can plant them. Forecast isnât as warm as it was just few days ago; some days little over little over +20 (low 70s F) some around +15 (59F) with nights 5-10C (41-50F) and possibly cooler at ground level. Hopefully can start planting later this month. I have planted and sown cool tolerant plants as well as flour corn. Yesterday I sowed cucumbers, summer squash, winter squash (maxima and moschata) and sweet corn. Today Josephs beans and some others. Those are covered by cloth both for little extra heat and protect from birds that have learned itâs free meals after people leave.
Bed of grain corn and outdoor cucumbers. Started germinating painted mountain 12.5 and other grain corn 14.5 to give little more time for painted mountain to get tasseling closer to same time. Itâs not much, but canât do much more and have them tassel before sweet corn. Cucumbers were sown 19.5 without germinating.
Couple years ago I had one yellow/white cob in atomic orange. Not sure what had happened, but must have been cross or wrong seeds at some point. It grew short just like atomic orange and only saw difference when I opened the cob. This year I try those seeds and interestingly there is quite clear difference between the two in early growth with yellow/white being faster. Itâs not unusually fast, painted mountain that I sowed earlier is about as fast. Problem with painted mountain is that itâs about week slower than atomic orange. Yellow/white also had 4 seeds that were brown/pink in colour. Possibly cross with atomic orange or painted mountain when I grew them. I sowed those separately and atleast one of them is as fast as others.
I was quite surprised to have cucumbers come up in 4 days even without germinating them before sowing. These are seed that I saved last year. 4 new varieties I am growing this havenât come up yet. Maybe there is some hybrid vigour with my own seed. Last year they werenât as fast even with germinating them before sowing. This year might have been sunnier and thus ground is warmer than last year, but those new varieties are definetely slower. To be seen by how much.
Direct sown tomatoes are up. Yesterday, when it was one week from sowing, there was 4 seedlings in F2 hybrids. Today there were dozens in all of the F2 and one in siberian early that is under clot. Ones I sowed in bare ground havenât coma up, same as peppers and eggplants. I would expect those to come up within few days.
It seems like hotter weather is always one week away and so far itâs been only slighly warmer than average. Tomorrow is one day of up to +25C (77F) and after that no days over +20C (68F). Despite that I sowed watermelons and melons yesterday and today. Had already made plans and went ahead. I did measure yesterday low of +13 (55F) in ground close to surface and on sunny days it has got over +20C (68F) fairly fast that it should be ok for them even if weather isnât as warm if itâs atleast half sunny. I did sow maybe 3000-5000 seeds with target of max 130-140 plants so there is room for error. Even that might be too much for the space, but I kinda expect some to fail also later. Direct sowning watermelons and melons isnât really what you should do here, even with black plastic mulch and cloth. I did leave small spot without black plastic and sowed about 100 watermelon seeds just under cloth to see how they do. That would be the next step, but maybe not next year. Next year I might do little bigger trial. Depends how well they do and how warm this summer is.
Seems like that even that last forecast was optimistic. Now last week we have been lucky to have even highs of 15C (59F) and now 4 days of barely over 10C (50F) with possible frosts. After that frosts should be unlikely, but days arenât that hot. Might get over 15C (59F), but even 20C (68F) is still just a dream. Once it warms up even little I have lots of transplants to plant and wanted to make it little easier by planting potatoes and ground cherries. I had forgot how my markings went and so gts potatoes got mixed up with other colourful mix. Doesnât matter that much as every plant still needs to proof their worth. Had 40 plants of those and 30 finnish mix. Many had small tubers on them and many of them colourful already. Still covered those with cloth. Colourful mix had so small modules and werenât feeling so great in them that it was part of the reason to plant them. Finnish mix looked much better in bigger modules. Those were 6 weeks old.
Ground cherries planted. I think there are in total 5 species and couple with more than one variety/accession. Pretty much all I could find. Especially p.viscosa and p.angulata are interesting because they are not like the others that are more like âstandardâ ground cherry.
Awesome! I didnât get any small potatoes so far. I had to give thèm bigger pots first or theyâll get run over by clover and stuff.
How many weeks are those groundcherries?
Ground cherries are 6 weeks as well. That seems to be good timing for them, tomatoes, potatoes and tomatillos. I like to keep them a bit smaller so that they donât get much transplant shock. Tomatillos seem to want it even shorter, but Iâll go for direct seeding them next year as they seem grow that well in pots.
Some ground cherries were actually month old as I forgot one variety. That was really fast to grow. I also direct seeded (16.5) one variety that I have been growing for a few years. They are just making first true leaves and should grow really fast.
I enjoy following the photos and updates. The weather has been a bit 
so itâs useful to see how an experienced grower is handling it. I guess itâs relatively normal for yourself, but I feel a little like I got the 
rug pulled out from beneath me.
Have you direct-sown any winter squash? If so, have any sprouted yet?
I did back during the warm period a week or two ago, but nothing yet (donât blame them as the wind chill is currently 1 C / 34 F).
I feel like rug was pulled under beneath me as well. Not sure whatâs the occurance of such weather at this time of year, but I would guess something like 1/10 years. Meaning this week in particular. Ofcourse more years will have some cold periods at little different times. Week earlier and it doesnât bother as much as then itâs easier to delay, later change of frost is minimal. I have sown winter squash 2 weeks ago with plastic and cloth. They came up in 4-5 days. Bare ground no wonder if nothing has come up yet. I was just thinking when to sow and what to expect if I were to grow without plastic and cloth. Since frosts are quite likely early june, last days of may or first days of june would be best as they might come up so fast if weather is warm. Itâs good that yours havenât come up yet. Just to test germination I made little test sowing of cucumber and summer squash a week ago to see that they will come up after weather warms and how fast. I suppose they wont come up too fast atleast.
Melons and watermelons have come up fairly well with black plastic and cloth despite cooler than expected weather. Last few days might have been little tough for them, but they seemed alive yesterday and itâs just going to get warmer. Germination has been somewhat erratic as I expected. One hole I had mostly between 20-50 seeds for one adult plant. Some holes had already enough to thin, but quite alot of them had one or few come up. It does seem that atleast I should have enough plants to fill area reserved for them. Some had some kind of bug damage and some had died from it, but Iâm sure there will be more to germinate. The ground gets quite blocky and with the cold weather there might be difference in emergence just because of bad luck. Not sure if itâs coincidence, but melon seeds I got from last years direct sow trial had one of the fastest and more even germination. Might be that I just had more seeds there. Also watermelon seeds from last years trial were among the fastest. Small trial of watermelons with just cloth on also had seed germinate quite well, maybe itâs close enough to black plastic to get some heat?
Some of the better watermelons.
Some of the better melons.
I direct seeded 6 varieties of moschata, 5 of which are in the picture. Only one of them has been able to barely keep up with my own genetically diverse seeds. Maybe no suprise that itâs nepalise variety. One is still to come up. For my own seeds I was little worried that maybe seeds that did not come from the 2 fastest plants werenât going to be as fast, but it seems that all of them had some that are coming about the same speed. Possibly cross pollination or recombination. Would be nice to have more butternut types that are fast. What Iâm really looking for is to have males start flower at the same time as first females. Last year I had to wait one week from first female flower to have both flower at the same time. Week in our season is a long time.
Sweetcorn and squash have grown nicely under cloth despite cold weather. Itâs been sunny enough that itâs been noticably warm under cloth. Nights still get cold and itâs been only barely above freezing. I sowed little bit of sweetcorn on bare ground without cloth and they are really struggling. In two weeks since sowing they are already week behind those with black plastic and cloth. Yet they are still alive and if they manage to make viable seeds itâs quite good indication that itâs possible most years.
Removed cloth from beans now that it should stay a bit warmer. For some reason Lofthouse bean mix has had quite erratic emergence so far about 2 weeks from sowing. Might be that itâs been too cold or something with the soil. Some +10 other varieties had way less that had not come up. I did notice when I looked more closely that there were some that had just come up so there might be more in the coming days. There seemed to be some in each type I had separated so I should have lots of diverse seeds in case rest donât germinate. Just less changes to see if seeds have diverged from what I have sown. Not complaining though. This year is just for seed increase and possibly some crosses. Next years are more about adaption to climate.
Yesterday I planted almost all transplants I had to plant. Tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, eggplants, sweet potatoes and basil. Tomatoes and tomatillos are without cloth, peppers, eggplant and basil will have to get them started, sweet potatoes has double cloth for a while and then single cloth for rest of the season. Weather is still not very hot, but atleast chance of frost should be very low. Should be few days highs of 15C (59F) or little over and after that there is change of getting closer to avarage or even little over with temps creeping to 20C (68F) or little over.
14 different varieties of sweet potatoes to test. Hopefully some will produce seeds. Not at all sure if there is some daylenght related barrier to overcome. I have had some flower before well in time to produce seeds, but last year was first time I had more varieties to try and get seed. Only 3/6 varieties flowered and seems like none were match with each other so this year I wanted to get as many varieties as I could. Will plant some to pot also to induce flowering and to have the opportunity to take them inside. Last year all varieties that grew best were the ones that did not flower.
Some late frost damage. Very rare to have frosts this late nowadays. Mostly last frosts are in may and even earlier june frosts donât happen that often. Luckily this time they are also light and there was damage only at some spots. Nothing terminal. Mostly in squash and potatoes (although none in transplants) that are unprotected. Also yacon some damage were leaves touched cloth. Otherwise no damage on unprotected corn, tomatoes, tomatillos, bush beans and cucumbers. Also melons and watermelons did not have damege although they had leaves that touched cloth. Others I did not check under cloth, but those did not have leaves touching cloth so there isnât change they would get damaged with this slight frost. It must have been just something like -0.X C for just a short period. For squash I still had extra plants just in case so I can remove those damaged without it changing my plans.
This was interesting, 3/4 damaged with one completely undamaged. Luck or just little more tolerant? There were also more where one whole had some that had damage and some that did not. I donât expect them to be game changers, but maybe they can take 0.1C more or tolerate slight frost 15 mins longer. I will remove those damaged by frost once plants are big enough that there arenât unexpected damages.
Couple weeks ago I sowed some summer squash and cucumbers because weather forecast was so bad that it was good change to trial how it affects them. Whether they come up at all and how fast. Summer squash has come up in two weeks which is little surprise since it hasnât been over 18C (64F) since with many days barely over 15C (59F) and nights barely above freezing. It must have been sunny enough to warm up surface during day for them to germinate even this fast. This was just to get some reference when I can sow so that seedlings would emerge as early as possible if itâs cold like this again.
Unfortunetely rodents have had a field day. Not too many damaged out of what I have planted and all should regrow, but that does set them back quite a bit. Both of my s.cheesmaniea were damaged so I planted one spare I had. Also some other wilds were damaged and most of the damage was right there where I had wilds. Other side was clean. Set traps there lower the population a bit and started cutting weeds on the side of my plot so they donât have places to hide from predators. Little worried about my sweet potato harvest as couple years back voles distroyed big portion of my sweet potato tubers. Hopefully I can prevent that by early action.
That brief freeze occurred here as well (caught me by surprise as the forecasted low was 3-4 C).
The transplanted TPS (uncovered) seem to have been the main victimsâsome plants killed, some had all foliage killed, others appear completely ok.
The GTS group fared better than the Finnish Challengers⌠but I think they were about a week older. And it seems the slightly larger plants fared better.
Now our night lows jump by 10 C and Iâll soon forget all the lessons of this strange late spring period 
â
Your garden looks great and I appreciate the efficiency and thought that has gone into the organisation and details (trellising,etc)
Forecasts are for 2m hight and ground level generally gets colder than that. Usually at most 5C colder, although itâs possible to be even colder than that. Generally if forecasted low is 5C itâs better to expect frosts (maybe not that much during mid summer). That forecasted 5C might turn out to be 3-4C and then clear night will have frost, even down to -1C, -2C. Thatâs already quite damaging for plants that donât tolerate frost. Today I noticed that some tomatoes had also damage, but it got visible only today. They should regrow. I would expect that your potatoes could regrow even if they look really bad at the moment. Bigger plants might fair better, but this frost seemed light enough that I think for me it mainly was about luck. Somewhere it went little below, and somewhere it stayed just above. If it gets to -1C, -2C range even bigger plants will be completely killed off. You might see that in the autumn.