Wind, wind, go away, come again another day! The weather is finally warm and perfect for planting, but the spinning windmill in the garden is a sure sign that the weatherman’s prediction of gusts up to 65 mph may be right on target.

It’s not the best day to be transplanting tomatoes into the ground, but they’re longing for a permanent home, and if they aren’t settled in soon, the wind might break their tender stems or blow them down the street.

So, today, I’m going to tuck an Ace tomato and two Black Krim tomatoes into a raised bed. The first step is to gently ease them out of the containers.

A unique feature of tomato plants is the root nodes that grow all along the stem. When the stem is covered with soil, these nodes become new roots. And, the more roots your tomato plant has…the more nutrients and moisture it can uptake for healthy production. So, the next step is to cut off the lower branches from the part of the stem that will be buried under the soil. (You want the lower stem to be 1/2 to 2/3 bare.)

Then, make a trench in the soil 3″-4″ deep and lay the stem and roots down in it horizontally, leaving the top ½ to 1/3 of the stem above the soil. Don’t try to force it upright; it will straighten up on its own as it grows and reaches for the sunlight. After that, insert a tomato cage on top, being careful to avoid damaging the buried part of the tomato plant. Now…water immediately! It’s easy to get caught up in other garden chores after this, thinking you will go back and water the tomatoes soon, only to forget and find that your newly transplanted tomatoes have wilted beyond recovery.

While the tomatoes will take up a lot of space in the bed, there will still be room to border them with some flowers. I’m choosing Little Gem Marigolds for one side (from transplants) and Nasturtium Peach Melba (directly sowed from seed) on the other. Some other good companion plants for tomatoes include: basil, borage, chives, and onions.

Finally getting tomatoes into the ground is a good feeling, but the best part of today is going to be lunch! I’ve got vigorous young crops of lettuce ready for thinning: Little Gem, Red Sails, Valentine Mesclun, and Tom Thumb. Before I started, I grabbed a big metal colander from the kitchen. Since I watered the beds last night, the soil is nice and soft, making the seedlings easy to pull. To thin, I pull out a small clump then pinch off the roots before tossing the baby greens into the colander. Doing it this way, makes it easy to get lots of ready-to-eat salad in a jiffy. As an added touch, I pinched off a few chive blossoms from a nearby bed, pulled them apart and scattered the petals on top of the salad mix. Once inside, I’ll give this lovely gourmet blend a quick rinse, and it’s ready for the table. It looks so elegant, I may have to set the table with candles to go with it! Nah…it’s too windy today to play with fire near the back porch. But, what a fun thought!

It’s a happy day when the young tomato plants can finally go outside to start hardening off! With sunshine and a high in the mid-70’s this afternoon, the weather is nice enough to start transitioning them in a sheltered location.

I’ve chosen a spot on the east side of the house where they will get morning sun and afternoon shade. In this area, they are protected from wind and from getting too much sun at once, which can cause leaf sunburn. When you first start to harden off your tomatoes, don’t be surprised if they look a little wobbly and floppy as they adjust to outdoor conditions. As long as you keep them watered, and they are protected from wind (which could cause stems to break), they will toughen up.

This hardening off period in a sheltered location will take about a week. It’s necessary to get them used to bright sun and outdoor conditions. If a late frost threatens, I’ll bring them back in at night. They’ll only be allowed to stay out all night when nighttime temperatures will definitely stay above freezing. Remember that when you transplant tomatoes, you should either bury the stem half way down in the soil, or lay the plant on it side and cover it half way with soil. The lower stem will then produce more roots along it, and the top of the plant will grow upwards and be more vigorous.

Remember the Lobelia plugs that I transplanted into larger cells a couple weeks ago? They’re really growing now and looking perky. I’ve got the flat right next to the tomatoes to start their hardening off process as well. They should be blooming in another 2-3 weeks.

We had a couple good days of rain last week, so the soil in the garden beds is still moist, and the weeds are sprouting like…well…weeds! This is the perfect time to go out and tackle them. I have five main organic methods in my attack plan:

In rock pathways where little weeds spring up all over, I pull out the ‘big gun’ to make an easy task of what could be a time-consuming process. My weapon of choice is a blowtorch. (A lot of garden centers carry these.) A quick blast from it aimed right at a weed will boil its cells, root and all, so it doesn’t come back. Of course, if you use this method, be sure to stay away from flammable structures.

The hula hoe is my next favorite weed elimination tool. It works well in areas with bare dirt. You simply rock it back and forth over the weeds, and it makes them disappear in a jiffy.

The paths between the raised vegetable beds are layered with several inches of dried grass clippings to keep weeds down. But, sometimes those pesky weeds work their way up through a thin spot anyway. An easy fix to smother them is to lay a couple sheets of newspaper over the top of them, then put down another few inches of grass clippings. Simple, but effective!

It seems to be a never-ending battle to control the grass that creeps under your borders into your flowerbeds. Unwanted grass has to be dug up with a trowel to get the whole clump. Along with that, it’s a good idea to follow any runner roots along with your hand to get all of it. (Grass roots are easy to identify, because they are so white.) It’s important to get the entire root system out or the grass will just re-sprout from it.

Of course, you really don’t need any special tools to get rid of weeds. When the ground is this soft, it’s easy to reach down and pull most of them out with your hands. Bindweed is a particular enemy that must be tackled with direct hand to-hand combat! Every time I see it creeping along, I pull it up, trying to get as much of the root as possible. This method is by no means foolproof. Since bindweed can regenerate from long roots, you may have to pull up the same plant many times before it weakens and gives up. (Some organic gardeners are known to resort to weed killers on this particular foe out of frustration, but note that applying weed killer on bindweed in the spring when it’s in vigorous growth mode can be like giving it a shot of caffeine—what doesn’t die just grows even faster. If you do choose to use weed killer, save it for the fall when bindweeds roots are storing up nutrients to prepare for dormancy. They will absorb it better and then be unable to recover.) But the best plan of action for weeds, and especially bindweed is to: Dig it up! Dig it up! Dig it up! Persistence is the key to winning the battle with weeds.

Spring is a fickle friend here in Colorado. We woke up to ½” of snow on the ground this morning. Since everything currently sowed outside is a cool season crop, nothing was affected much by the late chilly weather. The arugula, lettuce, mustard, snap peas, and spinach seedlings simply shrugged the snow off as the morning sun melted it, and the violas and pansies looked downright perky after their shivery night. Pansies seem to be a little more durable and even longer lasting than the violas. People often don’t realize just how tough they are through cold weather!

The extra moisture from the snow can help kick-start the growth of tender spring crops almost as well as rain. The only downside to this late light snow shower was that it was another sign that it’s still too early to plant some of the warm season crops outside. Our pepper and tomato plants are still huddled under grow lights in the office, even though we’re just days away from the average last frost date. Until the weather forecast shows some consistent warmer weather, they’ll just have to hunker down indoors.

Once the snow melted this morning, I was able to do a little thinning. On our arugula packets, we recommend sowing seeds 1″ apart, then thinning to 6″ apart after they are ½” tall. This is ideal spacing to get mature plants that don’t compete with each other for water and nutrients. But, sometimes, I sow seed more thickly, so I can get a fast crop of tender young leaves. Of course, this requires me to be more ‘cruel’ when thinning. A row of tightly packed arugula seedlings will produce a lot of foliage, but it will be a lot more productive if I gently pull out or snip out enough seedlings to make sure they are no closer than 1″ apart. This means I am sacrificing a lot of seedlings. They’re pretty small right now—only about ½” to 1″ tall. But, even this young, the thinnings will make a tasty addition to salads. It’s easy to put them in a strawberry basket and rinse the soil off. Then, you can top a salad with them that day or save them in the fridge to eat in a day or two. In another week or two, I’ll go back and thin this crop again, and have even more salad fare after a little ruthless plucking.

In the flower borders, I thought I’d share some photos of some of my favorite spring blooming plants. The white Candytuft and gold Alyssum are in full bloom right now. They make a smashing combination and really brighten up the spring garden. The blue Forget Me Nots are also making a lovely show with their intense blue color. I have huge mound of perennial Oriental Poppies that are just now getting pods. Next week, I may have some show-stopping blooms to show you.

It’s a cloudy cool day today with a chance of rain. It’s not too motivating for gardening outdoors, but since the ground is still damp from a recent rain/snow mix, it’s a good day to go out and pull weeds from the garden, since their roots come up so easily in the damp soil.

It’s also a good day for me to transplant my lobelia and alyssum plants that are growing indoors under fluorescent lights. A few weeks ago, I started both varieties in the 2″ wide cells of a Styrofoam tray with a wicking mat and water reservoir underneath. When I sowed the seeds of each variety, I sprinkled the seeds liberally on top of the seed starting mix. They have now become dense and lush green carpets of seedlings. The lobelia seedlings are about ¼” tall, and the alyssum seedlings are 1″ tall, and are ready to transplant.

(A quick tip: If you grow both Lobelia Cambridge Blue and Lobelia Crystal Palace together in the same tray and don’t have them labeled, you can tell the seedlings apart by their color. Both seedling varieties start out green, but the Lobelia Cambridge Blue seedlings remain green over time while the Crystal Palace seedlings will eventually have burgundy-tinted foliage tips (especially when they are getting good light).

To begin transplanting, I get a widger, a small spatula-like garden tool (you could also use a butter knife or old spoon), and gently lift out and tease a clump of seedlings apart into smaller clumps (about ½” wide (pinky nail-sized) clumps for the lobelia and about 1″ wide (1/2 pinky finger length) clumps for the alyssum). If a clump falls apart as you move it, you can gently squeeze it back together.

I transplant each smaller clump into fresh potting soil in six-pack containers. (Make sure your potting soil is loose and fluffy; don’t cram it too tightly into the containers.) After each small clump is gently tucked into its new soil, I use a water bottle with a squeeze top cap to lightly water around each one to settle it in. These new transplants will go back under the grow lights. They may look a little messy right after transplanting, but they will quickly fill out the cell and become more uniform. Don’t fertilize them right after transplanting—wait until they have settled in for a week or two. Then, you can give them a light dose of diluted fertilizer. For young plants, a granule or liquid plant fertilizer, or fish emulsion can be used, but apply at ½ the recommended strength listed on the package.

In 2-3 weeks (around the time of our average last frost date), they will be ready to harden off outside. (If you are unable to start moving the young plants outdoors at this time due to the weather or your busy schedule, and the plants start to get really tall and leggy, you can shear off up to ¾ of the plants to keep them compact and slow their growth.)

When ready to move them outdoors, I’ll gradually get let the plants get used to the temperature and wind outdoors over a week’s time by letting them spend a few hours outside each day. Then, I’ll plant them into the garden where they’ll make a pretty border for the beds around the willow tree and into containers where they’ll make lovely accents for other flowers.

This indoor sowing and transplanting process for lobelia and alyssum is well worth the effort. You can get a lot of plants from a few clumps of seedlings and they’ll look exactly like plants from a garden center. One or two seed packets will plant an entire flat of lobelia—a huge savings!

The poppies are up now in the gardens, and it looks like I’ll be cooking spinach for dinner, since there is a nice sized clump of the Bordeaux Spinach ready for harvest. Later this week, I’ll also be sowing beets, broccoli, bok choy, mache, Italian kale, amaranth, and nasturtiums outside. I just need to petition Mother Nature for a couple of sunny warm days to spend gardening!