Fighting back -- my plan to have a successful zucchini crop this year

Every season in the garden is a bit different, and I enjoy the challenge of adapting to  the many variables and still producing a good harvest.  Despite my best efforts, every year there is  at least one  easy crop that doesn't produce well.

In 2013 that crop was zucchini.  Not just for me, either, but for everyone I talked to who gardens in the Northeast US.  OK, I know all the jokes about leaving bags of baseball bat sized squash on doorsteps, but most summers I enjoy the exuberant output of my half dozen or so zucchini plants. 

Last year there was no exuberance, and all my zucchini died young,  victims of  fungus and the crowd of nasty little cucumber beetles that transmitted it. 

This year I am fighting back!  I bought two disease resistant varieties, Tigress (I grew this for years, but not last year) and Emerald Delight.  I am also (for the first time) starting all my squash in pots inside. They won't go into the garden until they have at least one set of true leaves. This means that beetles will not consume them before they have a chance to get to a fighting weight.

 I am also going to cover the young plants with a super light spun row cover until they flower, to further protect them from beetles. I'll have to uncover so they can be pollinated, but I hope by then the plants will be big and strong, and able to survive some chewing.  

And finally, I have some Neem spray that may help control the cucumber beetles. I use spray as a last resort- it's expensive, and even organic formulations can kill good insects too, throwing off the predator-prey balance in my garden.

I've also decided to start my winter squashes inside this year. I'm interested to see if this will make a difference in the final total of pounds of squash I store next fall.

Here's a pic of the zucchini seedlings just getting their first true leaves,  and the winter squash (and Brussels sprouts) planted but not yet showing:

Early harvest dinner ingredients

Here's a pic of last week's pasta ingredients-- fiddleheads, asparagus, last fall's final garlic head, and a sprouted red onion. I made a delicious pasta with sherry butter sauce.
No I did not eat the daffodils! These are a fragrant mini that came with the house-- I put them in a small vase on the kitchen window sill to sniff while cooking.

'so much depends on a black wheelbarrow'-- hardening off tomatoes

Sorry, I could not resist the paraphrase! My old black wheelbarrow has a flat tire and is cracked and leaky, but works great for holding tomato seedlings I am hardening off-- I just wheel it in and out of the garage morning and night. If the forecast holds and there is no sign of frost in the 10 day weather report I will plant on Wednesday.

May 2 video tour of the garden

Here's the first video tour of the year:

All the crops are a bit later than last year, but spring is definitely here. I f there are no frosts in the forecast for next week I will plant tomatoes.

My big tomato seedlings, and what to do with them

As I feared, my tomato seedlings started in March are big! Here's a pic:

And here's a comparison between Early Pick, started in March, and Sugar Lump, started 3 weeks ago:

The good news is that by using several strategies, including pinching back the main stem to encourage branching,  blowing on them with a fan to build strong stems, and feeding with dilute fish fertilizer every two weeks,  I am keeping the older seedlings strong and healthy.  I don't  even need to to stake them yet.
Early next week I will start hardening off my biggest tomato plants by carting them in and out of the garage in a wheelbarrow for steadily increasing daily exposure to wind and sun.  There are 3 varieties: Mortgage Lifter, Early Pick, and Rutgers. Around May 5th I will put a few into the garden. I'll either have really early tomatoes or lose them to frost... It will be an interesting experiment.

Yukon Gold potatoes and the lasagna bed, first asparagus

I was wandering Walmart's garden center about a month ago (I like to browse the garden department of all the big stores every couple of weeks, generally in search of discounted items) when I saw bags of seed potatoes.  It was way too early for our area, but I guess their shipping schedule doesn't acknowledge regional seasonal variations. They were already well sprouted, cheaply priced, and two varieties I don't currently have in my wintered over seed potatoes.  I bought a three pound bag each of Red Norland and Yukon Gold.
When I got home I wrapped the bags in newspaper and put them in the right crisper drawer with my other seed pots. Two weeks later I pulled them all out, laid them on baking trays, and put them on top of the bookcases in the upstairs front bedroom to warm up and sprout a bit more.
On April 9th they went into the ground. I built a 'lasagna bed' of  cardboard, newspaper and compost last fall, and I was pleased to find the soil was rich and full of earthworms this spring when I dug it over for  the potatoes:

Here's a pic of the leggy Yukon Golds that I planted in this bed:

The Red Norland went into a raised bed made of recycled decking material, which held garlic last year. I laid sticks over both beds to keep Sol from sleeping on top of the emerging spuds:

Nearby  I discovered the first asparagus of the year-- and they were purple.  My green asparagus are not showing much, but the purple ones are a bit more precocious:

I'm glad my asparagus has survived it's second winter here in my garden, despite many very cold days  (we were as low as -5) and a bit of snow two nights ago, on April 15th.

Lots of seedlings.... too soon?

Last year my first set of tomato and pepper seedlings did poorly due to the off brand potting soil I used.
I did a second planting in early May and ended up with a great harvest despite the setback, but I was frustrated by the extra money and energy I had to expend.
This spring I was determined to do better. I bought premium potting soil and new seeds, a mat for bottom heat, and built new shelving to keep the light bulbs closer to the growing young plants.
But I didn't adjust my seed starting schedule to the late spring we've had, and now I have too many big tomato seedlings too soon. They have already been replanted into individual pots (deeper to get more root growth along the buried stem), and they continue to grow apace-- well, actually at too much of a pace!
Here's a pic (yes, there are some Moonflowers too):

So now the challenge is to keep them happy until the last frost, about a month away. I'm going to pinch the leader back on a few seedings to see if I can encourage branching, and I will also start to keep them at cooler temperatures. Finally, I will build a cold frame for them in the garden that will be insulated enough to take some of the bigger plants out for hardening off quite early, by the end of next week.  Just in case I lose some I did start a few more seeds this week.  Maybe next year I'll finally get the timing just right.