Planting Potatoes and Website Update

     Hi everyone. I have a gardening update and a couple of important announcements for you today. We finally got the no dig potatoes out. We placed at least five varieties on ground that had been covered with cardboard. We then gave them some compost and covered it all with straw and cut grass.
     The first big bit of news is we had a successful trial launch of our little seed business. Thank you to everyone who purchased our seeds. We are now temporarily sold out but will have plenty more seed in about a month.
     That leads me to the second bit of news.While we are waiting for the seed in the fields to mature, we are going to do a website redesign. The main change is going to be individual product pages that will feature prominently toward the top of the home page. Several other tweaks will be made to the features and appearance of pernies.com. We'll see you next time!

Near Record Cold Weather

     It's always important for gardeners to pay close attention to the weather and also to have a moderate amount of patience. As much as I wanted to put out our warm season crops I knew I needed to wait until all chances of frost had passed.  For us in zone 6b, that was suppose to be the first Saturday of May. As the day approached, the local meteorologist began to warn that the unusual cool temperatures we were experiencing were going to get even colder. Sure enough, they are now predicting we will get at least frost and maybe even a freeze. The people who put out tender plants in their garden will lose them all.
     While I was smart enough to wait, I'm still faced with a problem. This late frost or freeze has effectively shortened the warm crop growing season. My peanut plants may not have time to make peanuts. My corn, millet and sorghum plants could have reduced yield because they will get planted late. Thankfully, I have a solution. Buckwheat is warm season pseudo-cereal that has a fast time to maturity. Assuming there are no "acts of god" there is a very good chance for buckwheat to return a high yield when planted late in the season. Many thanks to High Mowing Organic Seeds for getting my order to me quickly.