Soil temp 62
Yesterday I put the peppers and eggplants into the raised beds. This crop was seeded into paper pots on April 14th, and potted-up (transferred to 4" pots) on May 5th. Every year spring fever gets me and it's a struggle to refrain from starting too early but this year it's looking good; the plants are just about perfect. I'll start about one week later next year.
Pepper varieties - 3 Early Jalapeno, 6 Sunshine (sweet), 6 Szegedi (sweet), 3 Nu Mexico Joe E. Parker (anaheim-like)
Eggplant varieties - 3 Asian Baby, 3 Rossa Bianca
This might seem like a lot for 2 people but we're hoping to grow enough to donate this year.
The plants were placed closer together than the seed packet instructions say because space is limited and my experience has been that planting closer works under our conditions.The raised beds are also hoop houses and are covered with both bird netting and plastic sheeting that is removed or adjusted depending on need. We'll keep the netting on until the plants are established and big enough to withstand the finches and quail, and then it will be removed so that pollinators can reach the blossoms. The sheeting is positioned to cover the western side only and will protect the plants from wind.
First I positioned each pot in the bed to get a feel for space and aesthetics. Each planting hole received a 1/2 trowel full of worm castings from our very own worm farm. All year we've been supplying our little worm-herd with kitchen scraps and shredded paper, and now we have a nice bit of nutrition for the root systems. I'll say it again...now all we need is sunshine. 
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