May 17 was the official frost free date for our area. We are past it. On May 8 we planted our first Tomatoes (30) and on May 10 we lost more than 1/2 of them. There is a reason to wait. We aren’t expecting any more frost until at least September. If you want to know what the weather is like here at GI Acres you can check out our personal weather station (PWS) on www.wunderground.com at station KNEGRAND69 named GI Acres. If you check out the low for Monday May 10 you will see it got down to 31.7F. Just a little too cold for tender tomato plants.
We have also been working in the main garden planting since then. You can follow along and see where things are planted at https://www.growveg.com/garden-plans/1233012. That is the plan for the main garden. (Cabbages, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Sweet Peppers, Hot Peppers, Okra, Eggplant, Radishes, Turnips, Peas, Kohlrabi, and lettuce that came back from last year). We have some sweet potatoes in because we were able to buy slips from Barb’s Greenhouse. The main garden will also have a Three-Sisters garden plot with dry edible beans, squash and corn. We also extended the strawberry beds and planted a bunch more strawberries. We planted tomatoes to the south of the orchard. I will be mapping and recording the orchard and tomatoes soon. Potatoes and onions are planted in the back garden https://www.growveg.com/garden-plans/1267610. The other new thing that we will have this year and hopefully for a long time is sunchokes or Jerusalem artichokes. They are a perennial sunflower with an edible tuber (choke) that can be harvested. It is supposedly a low carb potato substitute.
The mushroom bed is starting to produce. We have has several meals of winecaps. Hopefully it will still be producing at the beginning of June when we start in with shares. Ash from Nebraska Mushroom brought us more spawn and we need to get more wood chips from O’Neill Wood Resources.
We expect to plant more this weekend and will keep you all informed.