The crops in the hoophouse suffered significantly from voles this year. The voles ate all the claytonia, spinach, lettuces, and whatever else I had planted – with the exception of kale and arugula. Not to their taste, I guess. So we had a meager crop of kale and arugula for our green supply this winter. We even had to supplement a little with purchased greens. But now the kale is lush and the arugula is going by.
Sam put an electric wire around the central beds, but we only found one dead vole. I don’t know if they left the scene for greener pastures or if the wire clicking scared them away. In any case, new baby greens are coming up undisturbed. And I’m using the heat of the sun during the day to baby my tomato seedlings and help germinate my parsley and peppers (at bottom of photo).
Eighty tomato seedlings – 8 cherries and 72 non-cherries of various varieties. The cherries include the delightfully named: Sunrise BumbleBee, Tropical Sunrise, and Principe Borghese. The most impressive of the non-cherry varieties so far are the Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye and the Italian Heirloom.
The seedlings are looking pretty sad and spindly at the moment. I just moved the tiny blocks into the larger blocks, which is a delicate operation. I’m counting on the natural vigor of tomatoes to make these guys want to grow!
