You win some, you lose some

A few weeks after planting the last round of cold-weather crops, it's time to assess how they are doing and begin transplanting the plants we started in trays. The radishes and peas are up and off to a great start. A few strawberries are even reddening and looking sweet. The kohlrabi and turnips look good and need thinning. The spinach and lettuce is coming up but looks strained (could have used a few weeks earlier start). Only a few carrots have popped up. Maybe they were planted too deep, or maybe we just need to be patient! The nasturtium flowers look promising. The onions never came up (probably planted too late). The garlic looks fabulous. Raspberry bushes left over from last year also look strong.

The trays of tomatoes, peppers, and collards we started in early April look good and are ready to be transplanted. One lucky Celebrity Bush Tomato became the inaugural plant in the lasagna beds we built in January. Wooo! It didn't die, so we went ahead and followed up with alternating tomato and pepper plants in one giant lasagna bed, and planted broccoli starts from our Flying Squirrel friends in another. Ben and courageous volunteer Ricky potted the remaining tomato starts so they'll have room to grow until we give them away. The peppers and tomatoes we planted as a second round mid-April were probably planted too late to make it this year, but we may be able to salvage a few. We also lost some collard starts to drying out.

All in all, things are looking promising, and when the soil dries out after all the rain this week, it will be time to plant summer crops.