Wednesday the 10th is the last frost date- but tonight we have a freeze warning, and tomorrow night is only supposed to be a couple degrees warmer. Good thing I got a nice greenhouse and know how to use frost fabric to cap over my fruit bushes and trees- the potted ones have already gone through blossoming, so I don't want to lose any potential fruiting off them. All the rest of the plants that have been sitting out between the garage and the greenhouse have been pulled into the greenhouse- all the little pot stuff. I even pulled the flat of toothache plant from the greenhouse to the solarium, just to be on the safe side.
The first week of May has been pretty darn nice so far though. Pretty much all my indoor seed starting is over now, I only have a few more pots under plastic for sprouting at this point. Got a LOT of various seedlings spread out between the kitchen, solarium, and greenhouse. It has been outstandingly nice having a greenhouse for so much stuff!!
I have been starting to harden off the tomatoes and peppers a bit with a couple hours a day in the mini-greenhouse on the porch. By next weekend, that will shift along with most of the rest of what's inside right now. Overnight temps will start stabilizing into the upper 40's/lower 50's so I will be able to overnight plants in the greenhouse instead of inside.. and without using a half dozen mini greenhouses and stupid amounts of plant shuffling. So far this year I haven't had to put the one I've been using as a shelf for pots and trays to plant use yet. Two in the kitchen has worked out fine mixed with the solarium. I have one full rack in the greenhouse, and one half rack- that one had a structural fail and the lower section removed, lol. And one on the porch.
Stuff done.. I recently moved the black compost cans and started filling the first one with cleaning out the kitchen herb garden. Over the last couple days I finished filling the bins.. I've cleared out all three lasagna beds. I'm going to give the whole area a hardcore spraydown with homemade garden spray- a mixture of oils. Neem being the biggest component- it seriously effs up a lot of the bad stuff like aphids, mexican bean beetles, squash and stink bugs, tomato hornworm feeding habits- they don't like the smell and emergent worms avoid it, reproductive cycle of japanese beetles.. while still being almost harmless to a lot of the beneficial insects that aren't out yet, and bees that are coming out now. Rain is coming in later in the week, and will wash it in.. then we can turn over those beds and give them another neem and oils shot. The other oils I'm using for this are Tea Tree, Rosemary, Lavender, and Peppermint. A nice side bennie of these oils is a lot of critters don't like the strong scent and start to avoid the gardens early.
I also cleaned out two of the raised beds real well. They were pretty easy to hand clean out since they were mostly loamy sandy and been more cleaned out more recently. The original raised bed is pretty much a contents loss, so I just cleaned it up so the frame can be dug up. These are going to me moved up to the east of the utility pole and west of the kennel garden.
But had to hunker down for freeze alert, lol. Now everything is cleaned up and tucked in.. and time for enchiladas thanks to my sis whupping up yummy dinner. and I'm off to make some refries and guac :)
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