I am a bit late on this. You can start fertilizing the tomatoes if they look doing good and not stressed after the transplant. I am sort of against any contraptions such as weed guard. It does not really help and in the longer run they are a pain. You should be fine with your raised beds on mulch. A weed here and there is OK. A while back someone told me this: you have two pile of dirt - one with weed and one without - which one you will select. The answer is the one with the weed since the other pile is so bad that even weed does not want to grow in that. Anyway, that is just an anecdote.

Yes. THANK GOODNESS IS RIGHT JODI! I was just at HD lastnight when I noticed all knds of bulbs, seeds, and many spring items coming in! Guess what I saw surrounding all the seeds and bulbs like the great wall of China? Big bags of Miracle Grow...lol Yup. Somebody is making tons of money on that stuff. Not from me anyway. By the way, I also saw tons of houseplants, mostly all of them left for dead! All were so dehydrated, including the beautiful Hoya's they had just gotten two weeks ago. The mix in those pots was peat based and hard as a rock! They were also infested with mites! My goodness, I will never take a plant home from them this time of year. We are happy you are watching yourself and not pushing anymore huge piles in wheel barrows. Lets's bring in the warm temps. Suppose to be in the 50's by next weeks end and finally, just maybe I can finally draw some fresh water from my 30 gallon barrel that has been frozen since December. I can't even see any of my bushes or shrubs under all this snow. I can't wait just to see the ground again.:-) Xuan: I would love to see some pics of your flowering bulbs. I would also like to say to you that I am so happy to see that you are no longer getting any snow..lol -3 degrees this am with temps in my popup at 40. I hope to God that my Hoya's make it ok since I forgot to bring them in. It should be warmer from here on out, thank God. Have a happy Friday everyone! Mike

Thanks, I read about Foliage Pro 9-3-6 and got a quart delivered from Amazon. It seems to provide everything needed. I'm giving bareroot transplants very modest (1/4 strength) the first week, and notched it up slightly for the second week. This comes after regular heavy watering on the weekend, so things are very mild, but there is some nutrient. The Valencia orange (Campbell actually) has shed some older, yellowish, mostly damaged leaves, but nothing alarming, and no fruit buds lost - just a little drooping after a warmer day, but it perked up the next day after a scheduled watering. The Meyer that was barerooted is acting like nothing happened. I may be imagining, but I think the leaves are turning greener.

Those temps are bad kms2! I have noticed some of my trees in black pots and gritty mix feel like they are baking! Yes, Plumerias grow in the tropics and it's hot BUT they are in the ground. Their roots are cool. Their heads can take full sun all day long but they like their roots cool. Also in most of the tropics there are breezes that help to keep leaf and temps down. I have grown them both ways for years, there isn't a doubt in my mind, they do better planted in the ground. However, let me say this... if they are young, small trees or rooted cuttings, I suggest leaving them in pots until they get bigger and have a well developed root system if you have to move them inside in the winter. In.South Florida or the Keys, put them in the ground and leave them alone and watch them take off. I have a Lutea that was being a real pain. It's a tall and skinny ugly stick that was that way when it was sent to me and it has never bloomed. After I took it out of the ground last October and wintered it in a pot in the garage, this spring I could not get it to do anything. No claws, then claws, claws would shrivel up. I repotted it in gritty along with all the others. couple of months later, still no leaves. I took it out of the mix, a couple 1" tiny brown roots. I was over it. I stuck it in the ground by some that are in pots and told it to root or die, I didn't care which it did. It sat there doing nothing for a couple of weeks and I waited to see if it rotted. Suddenly it took off, leaves all over the place, which means it also is rooting. I gave it some Root Excelerator to help the roots keep growing. No heat mat needed, The ground provides heat without the stress of wild temp swings which occur in pots. I believe bigger trees need to be in the ground and do far better by planting them in the spring, lifting them in the fall if you must due to freezes. Put them in a pot with the soil they were in while planted, put them in garage, greenhouse, whatever you use and leave them alone until spring. On warm days you can mist or give a cup or so of water, but keep them dry. Each year they will get much bigger than they would in pots. I have white plastic trash bags around some of mine in pots that get morning to early afternoon sun at a brutal angle. The heat of those black pots filled with gritty is insane down here in FL. The white bags reflect the heat and make a huge difference! We have had so much rain, day after day, LOTS of rain. I have about 100 in Al's mix and have yet to have 1 rot. In fact I have never seen such explosive root growth and such healthy roots on potted plumies. They are coming out of the bottom, all over the top, even ones that were just rooted in April have filled 1 gallon pots and are read to move up. Roots seem to love the gritty mix but you do need to get those temps down on the pots or the roots near the pots outer sides fry and turn brown. It's easy to test this. Put one where it gets sun, don't turn it. Take it out in a couple of weeks and check. All the roots on the inside that faces the sun will be in bad shape, the ones on the backside, perfect. Once I discovered this I moved most of them so the angle of the sun wasn't as bad, the others that get that intense angle from 9 Am to 2 pm I wrapped with white plastic to reflect the heat. It works,leave the bags loose so the black pot doesn't show through if the bags are thin. My trees look great, growing well, not many blooms yet. They are recuperating from the moves and repots I imagine. I may get mostly roots and growth this year but that's ok. With healthy plants and a big healthy root system, the booms will come in time. My Kapalua has an inflo. Hopefully all this rain won't cause the buds to drop off.