I'll give you two guesses of what you're looking at! Actually, you probably only need one. Yesterday, I decided to bite the bullet and plant a row of cherry tomatoes in our garden because they've been getting too leggy in the greenhouse. I had been watching the weather forecast quite closely and I swear there weren't any temperatures in the 30s listed while I happily planted these guys. Sigh...
I checked the forecast again last night and sure enough, there are some 30-degree temperatures listed for Wednesday night. Are you kiddin' me?! I do admit that technically I'm jumping the gun because smart veggie gardeners know to wait until closer to the 1st of June before planting their tomatoes. But don't you always fight the urge to plant them early? (come on, you can admit it because now you know I'm an offender as well)
OK, back to the photo at the top. Today, I decided to give the tomatoes and a few other tender veggie plants some protection. Since the cherry tomatoes are planted on either side of a 4' by 8' sheet of wire, that makes it a little tricky. Fortunately, I had a long piece of floating row cover that I encircled the plants and wire with and then used a lot of clothespins to hold it in place. So you are looking at a bunch of seedlings that are saying, "Let us outta here!" (and if you guessed that, you win the prize of the day... not that I know what that is just yet).
The second photo isn't pretty but it's how I protected my pole bean seedlings which, as you can see, are planted next to our bean arbor. Another tricky spot to protect! But no problem: I had two long pieces of "weedblock" fabric that I used in a similar manner to the tomato set-up.
These two arrangements should protect both the tomatoes and the beans. And for all I know, we won't get a frost but since we live in an outlying area, we usually get chillier temps than you city-dwellers do (you are soooo lucky). So keep your fingers crossed that all of our gardens come through this OK. And if you have an interesting way of protecting your plants, why not share it with the rest of us? Either comment on this post or drop me a note at inthegarden@live.com. Thanks.
