Got it Done! Spring Tomatoes and Peppers in the Ground

After incessant rain for weeks which made the garden and pasture a muddy, miry, mess, a few days of sunshine, wind and higher temperatures caused the ground to dry up quickly.  Saturday morning I awoke with a goal of getting all of our tomatoes and peppers planted.  I passed by the rain gauge thankful that I didn't have to dump any water out of it.

Hey, wait a minute!  There's no rain in the rain gauge, but there is a rain frog. I guess he's hoping for rain.  I'm not as I need to get some plants in the ground.  We'll empty the rain frog out of the rain gauge.  I don't want him to make it rain.

First things first.  The 'winter grass' has taken over the garden.  The soil is still too wet to till or work up, but that is okay.  Tomatoes and Peppers don't really need to be on rows.  I'm going to just drop them right in the ground.  First, however, I need to get the weed-eater out and get rid of the weeds.  I'll cut it as close as I can to the soil and this will help the soil to dry out.

Before

Amazingly, the weed eater started right up after only four pulls.  In no time at all, I had all the winter grass eradicated and the barren ground was exposed to the sun and wind, allowing it to dry out.

Since we're doing no till on the tomatoes and peppers, I used a post hole digger to dig holes where I'll plant them.  I filled the holes with homemade garden soil that we explained how to make HERE.  Then I got to work planting the tomatoes, adding more garden soil and then watering them in. 

By the end of the weekend, I had 60 tomato plants in the ground as well as twenty-something peppers.  We'll see how the weather holds out this week, and will begin planting corn and beans as soon as conditions allow.