Outside

First Spring Planting, 2009

Planted today:

Sugar Snap Peas
Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce
Merlot Lettuce
Bloomsbury Spinach

First Harvest

I harvested the first vegetables of the season on
Wednesday (6/18). I made a salad with the baby lettuce greens, snap peas and chives. I used the tarragon to make a sauce for pan grilled chicken breast. It was a wonderful dinner.

I'm wondering, though, why the lettuce is growing so slowly this year? I planted in early spring, and until this week we've had cooler than average weather - low 70's, mostly. I thought we'd be swimming in lettuce, but instead I just thinned it for the first time this week. Hmmmm, strange.

Vegetable Garden

It's been three weeks since I first got out in the vegetable garden. Since then, it's been very cool and damp, so the greens and peas are not very big, yet. One thing I've done, though, is to put up rabbit fencing, as seen below.

I am not thrilled about how this looks or how it works, but after having rabbits decimate the garden over the past two years, I knew I needed to take some serious action. If I could only convince Spouse to do the fencing the way I want* I would be much happier, but Spouse is convinced it would be "too hard" and that "it won't work." Harumph.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to do the majority of the planting. We've had such a cool spring so far that it is hard to imagine it being warm enough to plant tomatoes, beans, basil, squash, etc. Even though our average last frost is May 15, I think I'll wait until at least until the weekend of the 24th to plant. I'm not so much worried about another frost as I am about the growth-stunting mid-50s to lower 60s weather we've been having. It's perfect for the peas and greens, but not for the warm-weather crops.

We'll see. I hope to have my garbage can potatoes planted sometime this week, and I'll have pictures.

*What I want is to attach hardware cloth or rabbit fencing to the bottom of the wood fencing around the edge of the garden rather than fencing in each individual bed. We would dig a trench around the perimeter and bury it about 6-12". However, a major portion of the wood fence (and deer fence beyond that) is in the woods, under our huge arborvitae trees that have lots of shallow roots. We also have a very irregularly shaped area that would be somewhat resistant to fencing, but I think it could be done. Yes, it would be difficult to do it, but it would not be too hard, as Spouse seems to think. And then I wouldn't have to have ugly fences around each individual bed.

First Planting 2008

I was finally able to get into the garden this weekend. On Sunday, Spouse spent some quality time with the leaf blower, while I got going with the vegetable garden. The weather was beautiful - mid-70's and sunny.

Here's the upper bed after a few hours of work. I did some weeding, then spread compost over the two long beds and the triangular bed in the back. I strung the trellis with twine, so it's ready for climbing snap peas (I'm using bamboo teepees for pole beans this year.)

Once that was done, I planted Sugar Snap Peas under the trellis, Space Spinach* next to the trellised peas, Sugar Ann Snap Peas in half the far long bed, and radishes (Cherry Belle* and Purple Plum*) and lettuce (Merlot and Black Seeded Simpson) in the far triangular bed.

Meanwhile, in the lower garden, nothing much got done from a gardening perspective (although Spouse blew out all the leaves). However, some plants are starting to come up. Below you'll see the chives and the garden oregano. The season has begun!

* I got the seed for Space Spinach, Cherry Belle Radish and Purple Plum Radish from Pinetree Garden Seeds, on the web at www.superseeds.com. Right now I can't connect to their website so can't provide links.