Got all the tomato plants out there, a cuc and a cantaloupe.   Boy, was it a lot of work.  Despite prepping the soil a few weeks ago, I had to do it again.  Mainly because a certain cat moves the dirt all over the place.  You may think it wouldn’t be possible for a small cat to move a lot of dirt, but Junior REALLY likes digging.   What used to look like rows, looked like it had been hit by a small meteor, splashing dirt all over and creating craters.  The bad news is that I’ll have to keep a close eye on him or he’ll dig the plants back up.   I do create fake mulch piles for him to play in–those work about half the time.   I also use a lot of leaf mulch and he has declared several of those piles his own.  This is fine because I don’t care if he digs in those.  They’re mainly to keep weeds down.   He likes to go running into them, just like a kid, only he skids a lot further.

At any rate, I was able to do a decent job of transplanting this year.  With plants grown from seeds, the roots are not as thick and hardy–because the plants haven’t been in small pots for fifteen years (or 20 weeks, which is probably closer to the real number!)   This means that roots tend to break off easier.  I have to be very careful getting those large potted plants into the ground.   Although truthfully, broken roots in tomato plants don’t hurt much.  They will grow back and it takes about a week after being transplanted for them to settle and start new leaves anyway.

Broken roots in melons are a completely different story–they will stunt or kill the plant.  But I don’t let the plants get bigger than three leaves before transplanting so they are small and easy to handle.   The only risk here is that a big ole worm can eat the  transplants in about 4 bites!  I did use Green Light 27316 1-Pint Organic BT Worm Killer on them so hopefully they will sprout more leaves before getting eaten!!

I’m now ready for tomatoes.  GROW already!!!!