Dancing With Myself

15 hrs and 31 mins of daylight, and I finally got plants in the ground! I selected a bed in one of the older parts of the garden. This particular bed had a few good things going for it. First of all, it's one of the beds that had garlic in it last year. There were a few cloves I planted that apparently stayed dormant last year, but then decided to sprout this year, which is great because garlic deters many harmful insects. There's also catnip, chamomile and motherwort that self sowed in the bed. Catnip deters many harmful insects as well, chamomile can provide calcium and magnesium while attracting beneficial insects. And motherwort... Well I'm not sure what beneficial impacts it might have, but I love motherwort tea. There were also a few clover plants that I left in so they can sequester nitrogen in the soil. The ATV is still down, so I had to drag 3 loads of compost out back in the wheelbarrow. I think the compost will be really good though because I used Pfeiffer Biodynamic compost starter in it and have been turning it regularly with the pallet forks on the tractor (it's so much better at aerating than using the bucket, and easier too). After I spread the 3 loads, I grabbed a wheelbarrow full of bark mulch and added 3 quarts of dolomite lime for Cal-Mag boost and also to buffer the acidity. I then spread that over the top of the bed, dug out my planting holes, popped the plants in and put 2 quarts of Coast of Maine Bar Harbor blend around the roots to provide a buffer as they reach out. So even though I put down bark mulch, I also put down some local Lucerne Farms Ground Cover mulch. It was so dry last year I'm doing as much mulching as I can to help with moisture retention in the garden. Then I added some support hoops, and from 2 of those I hung yellow sticky traps to catch unwanted early diners. I covered them with an Agribon Ag-15 row cover to keep them a few degrees warmer at night, and also to reduce the amount of direct sun they're getting during this stressful time. I used one 2 years ago with my transplants and I feel it helped them immensely. Finally I watered them in. I haven't done any training with her, as I was saving her for cloning but now I'm not doing that since I started autos instead. But I'm not just going to top her right after transplanting because that's a lot of stress so I'll let her settle in this week and then next week maybe a little haircut... Or maybe I'll just leave her au naturale... No, because if she has a big, fat main cola it's more likely to mold.... Hrumph😕