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Monday, April 27, 2015

I secretly like them

Look at all the fuzzy little jerks that were in my yard the other day.


If you look close, you'll see there were four of them. They really like the buffet I put out.
Eating all the sunflower seeds

Peanuts on the patio
Saturday's al fresco dining wasn't nearly as nice.


It was cold and rainy, and I felt bad for mama squirrel. Then I realized that this is probably the same mama squirrel who put her in nest in the tree I need to cut down, so now I have to wait for the babies to leave the nest so I can get rid of the leaning, fungus-covered tree. Between the peanuts and the tree, I think my karma's covered, so I don't feel so bad about not having an umbrella on the patio table.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

It ain't pretty

Between rainy days and frosty nights, I've managed to get onions, carrots and peas planted. I tried something different on the garden plan and put the peas in a rectangle, instead of a long row.


Since I made that decision, I've been wondering what I was going to do to give the peas some support. I finally decided on re-purposing the fence I took off the strawberry bed. (I have regretted that many times, by the way. I have to keep chasing the dogs out of that bed. Just because the squirrels climb in there, they think they should, too).


I cut three five foot pieces, and secured them with my trusty green garden stakes.


I can't remember what I first bought those stakes for, but they get used year after year for stuff like this. It isn't pretty, but it works.


If my garden was about being pretty, I should've stopped a long time ago. Look at the gate, for crying out loud.



Saturday, April 18, 2015

I couldn't stand it

I spent my lunch hour at the garden center the other day. There is an awesome, local garden center not far from my office. They had asparagus. I couldn't pass it up.


The thought of not having enough asparagus plants was too much. The package had seven plants. I planted three to replace the three that died.


Now I'm thinking I'll plant the other four tomorrow. Just in case.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Brassicas

The little brassica plants have been spending time outside for a couple weeks now, getting ready for life in the real garden.

the windblown look

Tuesday, I was finally able to get them planted.

cabbage
kale and broccoli
I'm not sure if it helps, but last year I started using Liquid Fence to keep the rabbits away. I spray around the entire perimeter of the garden, and I spray each of the plants when I plant them.  I can't believe I'm going to say this, but, even though I've had plenty of rabbits in the garden, I haven't had hardly any damage. Hopefully my luck continues to hold.

In a few days, I'll probably want to spray these guys:

lettuce sprouts
I'm actually looking forward to tasting this lettuce, so I hope these little sprouts continue to grow.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Success and failure already

Transplanted asparagus - 60% failure

I transplanted five asparagus plants last fall. So far, I've only seen growth on two of them. This guy really shot up the past few days, but I certainly won't be eating home-grown asparagus this year.


I'm thinking about buying some new plants to replace the others, but maybe it's too soon to be sure they're dead? 

For what it's worth, I'm still glad I decided to take the asparagus out of the big garden. With spring rain, it's too hard to get into the garden to check on plants, so once I do get plants established in this bed, they'll be much easier to harvest than they would've been in the main garden.

Spring planted garlic - wildly successful


I can't give a scientific success rate here because I didn't count what I planted or what has sprouted, but there are little green shoots all over.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Three shoots



It's not much, but it's better than nothing. I need to get that grass pulled out, but I've been afraid of disturbing the asparagus.

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Here's what I'm thinking

Since I moved the asparagus last fall (fingers crossed I didn't kill), I've been trying to figure out what to plant in the bed in between the asparagus plants. There's plenty of room.


With a little help from Carrots Love Tomatoes, I finally settled on tomato plants. It hadn't dawned on me before that tomatoes don't need to be protected from rabbits, so I'm wasting space in the big garden. Not that my fence offers much protection from rabbits, as has been proven time and time again.

At any rate, tomatoes may be beneficial to the asparagus, and will be fine in an unfenced bed (which is how I grew them before I made the big garden), so I'm going to squeeze a few tomato plants into the asparagus bed.


I think I can fit as many as four this year.


With only three tomatoes in the main garden, I have room for more things, like lettuce, sweet potatoes and zucchini.


Wednesday, April 1, 2015

I planted something. . . outside


In that not-so-straight line between the two poles are some lettuce seeds. Winter Density, to be precise. That's only enough space for four or five heads, but I'm not even sure we'll eat that much if it grows.

In garlic news, I've been checking on it regularly, and have seen two green sprouts.


I figure if two are growing, the other 15 should be, too, so I decided to consider them a loss and planted some more. I've either guaranteed myself some garlic this year, or guaranteed that I'll have too much garlic too close together for any of it to grow well. I might give up on planting garlic in the fall. Two years ago I planted in the spring and that garlic lasted me a year and a half. That's good enough for me.