It seems the garden is coming together in bits and pieces when there is some spare time to be had. This weekend was not one with much for spare time. We enjoyed attending the Russian wedding of our girls' violin teacher on Saturday. A trip to the luthier (violin maker/repair) after the wedding and three extra children that spent the afternoon and evening with us joyfully took the remainder of Saturday. We took a supper picnic to a local park in order to watch the "Super Moon" rise. A fun time was had by all even if mom was wearing too many hats in order to get the pictures she wanted.
Despite little weekend progress, we did manage to get a few beds planted with seed last week. We also worked on my kitchen window garden, clearing out the leaves that had served as mulch and trimming back perennials. I am delighted to see many plants returning. I am also delighted that the kids were great helpers this week!
Planted this week:
- 2 rows of corn (this is a first time to attempt corn)
- 3 supposed heat tolerant spinach varieties (good thing since we are having a WARM spring)
- first planting of patty pan squash, more sequential plantings to come
- several more onion sets (totally late, should have been in a month ago but we'll see what happens)
- a bed of millet (Matt's experiment to see if we can successfully grow grains)
The tomatoes look great and the strawberries are doing well. The peas have not sprouted so I think our dry spring and my lack of irrigation (assuming spring rains would cover me) is looking like a fourth year of pea failure. The blackberries are looking beautiful and in the past week all of the fruit trees (that I didn't kill last summer) have leafed out. My sweet almond verbena is not showing any signs of life. Winter may have been too chilly for it to be planted in a pot. My mom has hers in the ground and it began putting out new growth this week.
This week, I bought two new fruit trees to replace some that have not made it. I added a Loring Peach and a Santa Rosa Plum. Of the first bare root plantings we put in three years ago, the Santa Rosa was the only one that did not make it. My other little plum is doing well and needs a pollinator, so now it has a companion. Hopefully we will get those in the ground this week. I also am researching my options on putting in blueberries. They do not like our alkaline, clay soil but it appears that by amending the soil in raised beds, we might be able to grow our own and save the $$ spend driving to pick them.
Though there are many projects that could and hopefully will be done, this is the first year in the garden that I feel it is built enough that it has not been a major drain of my time to make it happen. Because of how much of my time has been invested into building the garden in the three springs past, I was somewhat dreading planting anything this year. However, that investment is finally starting to pay off and I am glad that I didn't follow through on my threat to throw in the towel this year. Now if I can just get the remaining bags of soil to finish off my weed avoidance plan, all will be good.
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