Got the leek and beet seed snails transplanted out this week like I needed to! Go me!
This is the first time I've gotten leek seed to sprout. This is the second snail of beets for this season because a hard freeze plus 40mph winds killed all the transplanted beets from the first one.
Look at those nice roots!
One of my most useful gardening tools—a footlong piece of bamboo used to poke holes for planting seeds and green onion bottoms mostly. Here will be used to make deep narrow holes for the leeks.
I actually had to look up how to transplant leeks since I've never successfully gotten to this point before. I didn't trim the roots like they said to, just helped them down the hole with a chopstick and backfilled with sifted potting soil. Buried them up to where the leaves diverged. Plan on additional hilling as the stem grows up further.
I planted eight leeks around the new ollas because the extension paper said they were thirsty bitches (I'm paraphrasing), so this should make it easier once the now-annual drought hits. I did not make sure that the leaves were oriented radially, which would have been ideal, because I didn't think of it until afterwards. So it may be a bit chaotic this year.
The next day I added three Orange Icicle tomato plants and four Ashe County Pimento peppers to the bed to complete it. I'll tuck in some flowers—maybe alyssum or candytuft—later.
The beets also had excellent root development. Look at those laterals! Reminds me of the old TV aerials that used to be on everyone's houses.
I originally was going to plant the beets at the front of the bed that had the leeks, but realized it wasn't going to work out (so put peppers there instead). So instead I tucked half of them here and there in the sidewalk raised bed like at the edge of the carrots where no seedlings came up for some reason.
And the rest of them I put in a row in the in-ground bed next to the stepping stone path. Now I'm just crossing my fingers that they'll establish before a squirrel digs them up.
Bonus spring flower:
The clematis by my front porch has struggled over the years, but I think it's finally taking off.
