We used one of the best planting days this past week-Crab-The Breast-Cancer to plant 5 rows of corn and 106 tomato plants! Whew!
Seems like every weekend has been too wet or fell under the wrong sign for us to get the corn planted. The Deer Hunter announced we had to plant it after work-even if we were all wore out. I was dreading it something awful!
But it wasn't so bad. The Deer Hunter's new tractor tiller made the corn planting go lickety split. Waiting on someone to plow the long rows with a hand tiller seemed to take forever-but in 10 minutes it was done-thanks to the new tiller attachment.
The tractor left the dirt so powdery soft that it was a breeze for the rows to be laid off (well it was a breeze for me because The Deer Hunter did them!)
We planted Silver Queen, Golden Queen (Pap and Granny like for their corn to mix) and a half a row of field corn so Granny can make hominy out of it.
First The Deer Hunter plowed the area we were going to plant in; then he laid off the rows with a lay off plow; and we dropped the corn into the rows.
Then we walked along the rows dragging each foot so that the row was filled with dirt-covering the seeds. The girls like the covering part-because they are usually barefoot and they love how the dirt feels on their piggy toes.
Right when we were finished dropping the corn Chitter said "Oh is it time to pack in the corn? I want to pack the corn in can I? Can I?" Pap got a kick out of that.
In no time flat-me, The Deer Hunter, Pap, Chatter, and Chitter planted 5 rows of corn. I was so excited about how quick we got the work done that I said "Lets go home and plant tomatoes!" And we did.
The Deer Hunter had the raised beds ready and waiting-so all we had to do was dig a hole an plop the plants in. We added a spoonful or so of Epsom salt to each plant's hole, like we did last year. A local old timer told me he and his Mother swore by adding Epsom salt when they planted their tomatoes. Since we had the best crop of tomatoes ever last summer-we decided to go the Epsom salt route again.
We started all of our tomatoes from seed. All but two of the tomato varieties came from Sow True Seed-who is sponsoring our garden this year. One variety-Cream and Sausage is from seed I've saved for several years. The other variety Ox Heart-came from a Blind Pig reader, Cee. I'll tell you more about the Sow True Seed's varieties as they began to grow.
I was so worried about getting the tomato seedlings started later than usual-the firs of April this year. But in the end-it worked out fine. The tomato plants were just the right size when we planted them the other evening.
The hybrid corn-Silver Queen and Golden Queen came from the local feed store. My Uncle Lucky shared the field corn seed with Granny since he knows how much she loves hominy.
How's your garden?
Tipper







