Saturday, May 15, 2010

Spring Garden

It is green around here if you look up. The Birch trees have leafed out and are a bright spring green. The ground is still mostly brown with tufts of green grass here and there. The Iris, Delphinium, Columbine, and Strawberries are up as is the clover in the garden and the perennial poppies. The first plants to bloom around here are the poppies, although the newspaper shows a picture of the pulsatilla wildflower each year as the first flower to bloom locally. I guess my pulsatilla are not as content as my poppies - I should relocate them someday. The chives are also up, although I've been snipping them daily so I haven't given them much chance, can't help myself - fresh chives! I'm beginning to think the rhubarb kicked the bucket. That is what I get for transplanting it in the fall and burying dead chickens under it - which the dog dug up before the ground froze solid and continued to dig all the snow away from it throughout the winter....extra rhubarb divisions anyone?

As far as vegetables that I've planted this year go, the peas, carrots, radishes and beets are all up and growing. I've been planting onions and leek the last two days and have more starts than I have room for. I'm tempted to just keep planting them and then figure something else out as needed, but I have soooooo many broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage starts to put out, and then there are the greens, kale and chard and then there's the corn and squash and beans, edamame and outdoor tomatoes...ah so many things to plant and never enough room! 

Potatoes have been in the ground for a week. We've sowed rutabaga and turnip seed. Tomatoes are in the greenhouse. Eggplant, peppers and cucumbers are going into pots to be placed into the second greenhouse, but I'm not in a hurry to move them out as they'll be happier in the house for the next couple weeks. Next on the list for planting are some herbs that are rootbound in their small pots, they'll be going into raised and covered boxes, so should be fine. I've been hardening most the starts off for the last couple weeks by moving them outside during the day and back in for nights. I am going to wait a week or so before I put out the outdoor tomatoes, and any other starts that won't be in covered beds. So I think we'll switch to building some beds and filling them with soil this week. Make some room for beans, celery and squash.

Hopefully we don't have a super hot dry June, or I'll be regretting the size of the garden quickly enough - unless we get organized enough to install a drip irrigation system. Tomorrow we are headed over to friends for the day to help put up fencing for pigs, one of which will be ours this fall - I'll take some pictures of our future pork, mmm...cute piggy goodness.

3 comments:

Loks said...

Are you infested with mosquitoes and blackflies up there? They tend to take a toll of planting here.

Emily said...

This year so far so good. The last couple summers we've been fortunate as well. We didn't have a lot of snow this winter and haven't had much rain. The mosquitoes need moisture damp ground and moisture to thrive of which we haven't had much of. In the evening they do start becoming a nuisance down by the goats. In the afternoons we haven't had to dress for bugs, but on evening walks I put handkerchiefs on the kids heads and sweatshirts on more for bug proofing than cold. It hasn't been bad enough that we are covered in bites. It is a bummer having to garden in the evening wearing a hooded sweatshirt, gloves, handkerchief, jeans and covered shoes when I'd be in a tanktop and sandles if not for the mosquitos. I hold off on watering transplants till I'm done for the night as that draws the bugs.. As far as flies go, we don't have many. Maybe by mid summer when we are eating outside daily they'll start becoming a nuisance. I'm not sure if you mean regular flies or if blackflies are some other biting fly?? We are on the top of a hill, which makes for other inconveniences, I imagine we'd be more pestered if we were closer to water. I make a bugspray with essential oils which helps, lavender, lemongrass, citronella, catnip, eucalyptus. I made some up for the goats as they are harassed the most. Good luck, maybe the warmer weather will help.

gotomakan said...

Em, my dad has rhubarbs coming out of his ears on the south side of his house. Maybe he'd let you dig a few up. I'll give him a call and let you know.

<3 Grace