Monday Garden Update

Gardening is a practice of trial and error and with only a few years experience under our belt there is still plenty to learn.  It was hard to admit we had failed but we gave up on the broccoli seedlings underneath the house.  We set mouse traps to kill those pesky broccoli eating varmints, but time was not on our side.  We needed the broccoli in the ground to get a good footing well before the humidity sets in.

We bought some  'Packman' broccoli and cauliflower starts from the local hardware store and planted them last week.  We'll have to use the row covers off and on the next month or so.  So far though, the weather has been mild enough we haven't needed to put row covers on them yet!   

I'd much rather have had these plants come from our own starts, but hey...  there's always next year.

Monday Garden Club

We've had a mixed bag of successes and failures the last two weeks. 

Let's start with the failures.  Mice have eaten all the broccoli starts underneath the house.  The tomato plants look terrible and the eggplant and peppers never sprouted.  Basically, the whole system underneath the house isn't working.  Great.  What a waste!  Also, the peas we planted washed away with the 4 inches of rain we received.  Super.  Luckily, we have more than enough left over seed to replant.

Moving on to the successes...

We finished planting the srawberry beds.

We planted our potatoes in experimental bins.  The bins should last forever and we'll recycle them if they don't.  Let's hope the bin method is as successful as the traditional method we used last year.  Like the old method, we planted the potatoes a few inches deep.  We will mound up the soil in the bins as they grow. 



Spring is here.  It's been hot enough that the roquette we planted in fall bolted and is now too spicy to be edible!

The rhubarb that was ravaged by japanese beetles sprang back up...

and all the bulbs are coming up.  Let's hope the tulips aren't all eaten by deer this year before they show themselves like last year.

Daylilies

Nothing yet from the asparagus.  Crossing fingers!