Wow, after all the in and out trying to harden these plants off with the erratic weather, it's time to plant! I'm giving them one more day to get used to the bright sunshine and the heat, then I'm planting Sunday (and Monday and maybe Tuesday...it takes a long time to plan over 100 tomatoes!). I am taking tomorrow "off" from working around here to go to the Simsbury Grange fair on Saturday. I'll have a table with the tomato plants that aren't already spoken for at the Grange ( 236 Farms Village Road) from 9 AM until they're gone (or 3pm, whichever comes first). Of course, if you can't make it you're welcome to email me today at BriarwoodsFarm@gmail.com to reserve your plants, otherwise it's first come first served!
Just wanted to quickly update this post - I still have some tomato plants left (except for Cosmonaut Volkov). I did plant half my hybrid determinates on Sunday, but T-storms in the forecast made me hold the other half back. We did get some pea-sized hail, I went out during a break and they looked OK but we're getting so much more rain today I don't know how they'll look tomorrow. At least the beans should start germinating with this drenching!
Public Service Announcement - if you haven't already planted tomatoes, peppers, eggplant or other tender annuals, hold off until Wednesday. If you have, find a way to cover them tomorrow night. I don't know about in town, but North Canton (forecast I go by here in far SW Granby) is going to get to low 40's, and it will probably be even colder here and higher elevations such as North Granby and the Hartlands. Tomatoes can suffer chilling injury (not frost, but delays in growth and increased susceptibility to disease) below 42 degrees, peppers and eggplant below 50. A sheet thrown over the cage, or a pot or bucket held down with a rock, can help protect these tender plants.
As for me, tomorrow will be spent weeding and mulching the beds I've got planted, running drip hose for the edamame (should have done that before planting, though if the weather keeps up like this they won't need it!), and maybe getting more T posts to stake my indeterminate tomatoes since we used the ones we already had to make a sturdier fence around the house garden this year.
Maybe Wednesday and Thursday I can get the rest of the tomatoes in (only 108 left to go)!
