Rabbits and Ants

I got Matthew to take a nap around 11 and went out to do some weeding in the garden, only to discover that the rabbits ate my peas.

Out of a 20 foot row of peas, only a dozen plants remain. Of those dozen, most are short stumps. Only 2 are untouched. I suspect the rabbits have been thinning the spinach too, although there are still enough healthy plants I can't tell for sure. And the lettuce are too young for them to even bother with yet.

To add insult to injury, several ant colonies have taken up residence in my garden.

I think I'll be needing some fencing for the rabbits. That won't help my peas though. (Sheds a tear.)

Watering, Weeding, and Asparagus

Yesterday, while Matthew napped, I went jogging and then buckled down to the garden. I rearranged soaker hoses to start watering the front flower bed, where the pansy seeds are. I watered the veggie garden, the flower bed, the peach tree, and the asparagus patch.

Then Matthew awoke, actually I accidentally woke him up - oops. But it was nice warm weather out, so I plopped him in the stroller and he watched me weed the veggie patch. I got a lot done before he started getting antsy. Then I delivered him to Dave to watch flint knapping for a while. Matthew enjoyed the change of scenery.

While watering the asparagus, I discovered my first asparagus stalk. It's an itsy bitsy wimpy asparagus stalk, but I think that's to be expected since it's the first year. Seriously, it's almost as skinny as a blade of grass, but it's standing proud. I'll be watching for 9 more baby asparagus stalks coming up soon.

After all the watering, it rained last night, more or less negating the effort. Nevertheless, the soaker hoses needed rearranging, and I got quite a few weeds pulled.

Bill gave us a wheelbarrow full of mushroom soil that's weed free to use for fertilizer and mulch. This is the first year they've used this stuff so it's kind of experimental. I'm really hoping it's not only weed free but also mushroom free because if mushrooms get started, I have no idea if they can ever truly be stopped....

By the way, the peas are looking great, and the spinach is starting to show its first true leaves.

Weather today through Tuesday: 56/36 T-storms, 56/31 sunny, 54/36 sunny, 56/43 chance of storm. We may get even more natural watering. :)

Pansies and Lettuce

It's late to be planting pansy seeds. I wanted to plant them a while ago... 2 to 4 weeks before the last frost. But this was the first time since I bought them that it wasn't raining and the cultivator was ready and I wasn't out of town. So I dug up some ground and sprinkled some seeds and raked a bit of dirt over them. We'll see how they do. The daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths in the same bed are looking lovely.

I also planted some lettuce today, so now in the veggie garden, I've got a row of peas, a row of spinach, and a row of mixed lettuce. The first two are well sprouted. Unfortunately in the last week I've been away a lot for a conference and visiting friends, so the weeds have gotten ahead of me. But the cultivator seems to do a very good job of loosening the soil enough to get them out without too much trouble. Hurrah!