Busy Garden Week

Tuesday I spent 2 hours in the heat of the day weeding the part of the spinach and pea row where the rabbits have taken care of the peas, and I've decided is the best place for the lima beans to go.  The rush is that I just realized the lima beans will need to go in the ground soon.  They're about ready whenever the spot is ready.  Which means buying posts and hanging the concrete wire Bill had left over from his bean support system.

I wound up with sunburn on my thighs and on what would be the tramp stamp area from weeding bent over for two hours in the midday sun.  This serves as a good reminder that sunblock goes everywhere.

Then Dave came home early and had time to work with me in the garden.  We added mushroom soil, store bought topsoil, and slow release fertilizer to the new flower bed we're making out front.  Then we (meaning my man-beast) tilled the flower bed to be and the area of my veggie garden where the corn goes.  There was also weed whacking and lawn mowing that went on.

Today (Thursday), I planted all 4 rows of corn and Matthew helped me.  He played with the dog, he watered his feet, and he played in the new sandbox Dave built, among other interesting activities.  The nearer half of the rows are planted with the earlier variety of corn (Seneca Snowshoe) and the farther halves have Argent which matures later.

Did I mention there's a dogwood tree temporarily residing in my veggie garden?  Yeah, it belongs in the flower bed to be out front.  It's sitting where the melons will go while they grow a bit in their peat pots.  The cantaloupe and honeydew are all up, and I just thinned them to one per cup.  And the first melon is peeking out of the dirt today, hopefully followed by at least one per cup in the other three cups.  :)

I have some spare tomatoes and eggplants, and some basil and oregano still upstairs too.  Everything, except maybe the oregano is about ready to be transplanted to a bigger pot... if not to the great outdoors.  Those basil are getting big and beautiful (relatively speaking).

Gardening Update

I've been busy lately, speaking at a conference, photographing a wedding, so I've gotten a bit behind in the weeding... and in the reporting on my blog. So, here's where things stand in the garden.

The fence is working GREAT! Things are growing without disappearing. I've got lettuce and spinach ready for harvest, the peas are growing tall and flowering and I even see a few pods forming.

I planted both varieties of corn on May 12, once the rows of black plastic and black fabric were down, and then I planted carrots and spring onions on May 13. I hadn't planned to plant these, but I had a bit of space in the row of spinach so I bought some 50 cent seed packs and stuck them in the ground.

The seeds are from American Seed.

Carrots - Danvers Half Long - Very uniform, heavy-cropping carrot 7 to 7 1/2 inches long. Flesh is bright orange, tender, and sweet. Excellent for table or freezing. (70 days). Sow in well worked, stone-free soil, after danger of heavy frost (April-June here). Thin seedlings when they are 2-3 inches high with the final spacing of the plants 3 inches apart. Thin ruthlessly; they need room to grow. Water lightly as too much water can cause cracking.

Spring Onions - White Lisbon Bunching - A mild green onion. Tops remain fresh and crisp well after harvest. Green onions are not suitable for winter storage. (60-75 days) Sow in a sunny location after danger of spring frost (April-June). Thin to 1" apart when 3-4" high.

The corn is already well established. Hurrah! No sign of carrots or onions yet, but I'm waiting patiently.

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!

Beautiful Weeding Weather

Today we have beautiful Springtime weather, perfect for gardeners gardening and plants growing. I spent an hour of Matthew's nap weeding the veggie patch. The peas haven't come up yet. I wonder how long until they do.

I also assembled the mini Black & Decker cultivator that I got for Christmas. The battery has been charging since 10:30 this morning, so 9 hours from then - around 7:30 tonight - it should be ready to dig up the flower border on either side of the sidewalk so I can plant my pansies.

Would you believe I have a tulip blooming and another about to? My crocuses are still blooming and my daffodils haven't even started yet!

As for details on the weather... it's currently 63.5 degrees out with an expected low of 45. Saturday through Tuesday will be 52/47/rain, 67/40/tstorms & showers, 59/38/sunny, 59/43/sunny.

Poison Ivy?

I spent Matthew's morning nap in the garden with the baby monitor, removing clumps of grass and laying out soaker hose. It was a very productive and enjoyable 2 hours, and I'm happy to report the soaker hose works very well.

I also got quite a few clumps of grass trying to regrow out of the garden before it occurred to me that some of the clumps were brown and fuzzy, kind of like old growth poison ivy. Could it be? There wasn't any in the patch of lawn we turned into garden... but we did recently add some topsoil to raise the garden a bit and I don't know where that came from.

It could very well be poison ivy. Thank God I was wearing gloves.

So, I aborted the morning garden project in favor of immediate prophylactic poison ivy treatment. I went inside; washed my hands; stripped; smeared alcohol based hand sanitizer on hands, wrists, face, neck, and ankles; took a hot, soapy shower followed by a hot soapy bath laced with witch hazel. Take that poison ivy oils!

I hope I was wrong, and it's not poison ivy, and I did all that for nothing. But there was no way I was going to risk getting poison ivy on Matthew if I could help it. And I'm not such a fan of getting it myself either.

If there are poison ivy remnants in my garden, I'm not sure what to do about it.... Does that look like poison ivy?

Update: Dave assures me, it's not poison ivy. Just roots from something. Whew!