Well, it looks like it was a little too early to be moving things outside. We’ve had 4 or 5 inches of snow this week. Although the low temperatures were hovering in the mid-40s, they have regressed to the high-20s. It’s been as cold as 25 degrees this week, and they’re predicting more cold and snow this week. Somebody needs to tell mother nature that it’s May, not March.

None of the potatoes or peas have sprouted outside yet. We didn’t cover the broccoli, cauliflower, or onions, but they all seem to be doing fine.

The covers we placed over the tomatoes, peppers, and squash claim to protect crops down to 29 degrees. It’s been below 29 degrees every day this week. I’m pretty sure the squash are a complete loss, and it looks like the tomatoes are at least 75% gone as well. The peppers seem to be fine, other than the damage they have taken from the cover rubbing against them in the wind. Maybe it would have been better to not cover the peppers at all. We’ll never know.

Everything is continuing to grow and need more room to expand. We’re going to be forced to move even more plants outside this week, so let’s hope it stops snowing sooner than later.

We’re also starting to plant seeds for other stuff that doesn’t take as long to get going. We planted Armenian Cucumbers (a melon that looks and tastes like cucumber), Cucumber, more Cherokee Purple Tomatoes, and a bunch of pumpkins. Now we just need it to warm up!

Despite the recent snow, and the threat of more snow in the next few days, we decided to start planting things outside. We figure we can cover them a week or two to protect against frost. But seriously, why are we still getting frost when it’s almost May?!? But I digress.

After I uploaded the photos to the computer today, I clicked on the “Last 12 Months” short cut in iPhoto to see how this year’s garden is shaping up compared to last year’s garden. I was amazed at the difference. I guess those Master Gardener classes Charmaine took last fall are really paying off!

Planted outside this week:
16 Roma Tomatoes
18 Jalapeno Peppers
6 Squash
Broccoli and Cauliflower
Onions (from seed)
Beets (from seed)

It suddenly turned warm this week, and we found ourselves planting peas and potatoes. We planted 2 beds of potatoes and a few short rows of peas. After planting 6 rows of peas, I wasn’t able to tell which bag of peas I had used… it’s clear to me that we bought way too many peas (seems the cashier at IFA was right). We tilled two of the raised beds from last year to plant the potatoes.

At a certain point, when you’re hobby grows to a certain size, you have to ask yourself, “is this still a hobby?” I’m not really sure anymore. We were in Herriman for a birthday party, so we hit the Home Depot there… and they still had our favorite shop lights in stock, so we picked up 4 more. We have 16 (sixteen!) shop lights hanging from our racks. I don’t think we’ll need any more.

I decided to do a full count of what’s growing this week:

Large pots:
33 Roma Tomatoes
24 Jalapeno Peppers
18 Poblano Peppers
16 Cascabella Peppers
12 Banana Peppers
3 Winter Squash (pumpkins or banana)
2 Anaheim Peppers

Medium starter pouches:
21 Sweet Red Peppers
21 Tomatillos
20 Brandywine Tomatoes
19 Big Boy Tomatoes
18 Orange Sun Peppers
12 Sweet 100 Tomatoes
12 Big Jim Peppers
11 Habanero Red Peppers
11 Hungarian Wax Peppers
10 Big Bertha Peppers
10 Jalapeno Peppers
10 Peperoncinis
10 California Wonder Peppers
10 Cherokee Purple Tomatoes
9 Anaheim Peppers
7 Eggplants
6 Winter Squash (pumpkins or banana)
4 Poblano Peppers

Tiny sprout starter:
48 California Wonder Peppers
40 Anaheim Peppers
12 Jalapeno Peppers