This year has been really strange though. Warm (hot actually) and then snow, and rain, rain, rain. When it finally would dry out enough to work the soil it froze and baked some more. None of my early plantings got in on time, partly on account of the weather and partly because of the chicken pen follies. Marauding fowl are not conducive to planting. I did get some early lettuce and cabbage transplants out (covered them up to protect them from the fowl) and seeded a bit of lettuce, beets, carrots and planted the potatoes but only recently have they shown themselves. The spinach never did come up and the first planting of peas is terribly spotty.
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In the herb bed, the Chinese lanterns are returning from last year, though they got beat badly by the hail. Calendula and basils, along with other herbs, have been added. |
I was pleased to see that the discounted living Yule tree that we bought for the past holiday has decided to grow and thrive. As per instructions, it was only in the living room for a little over a week; the rest of the winter it lived in the cold back room, by a window and was watered fairly regularly. I was worried, since it was hard to water (the pot being larger than would fit well into the largest garden saucer I could find) and had been discounted as well.
Today was spent working in the main garden; I planted out most of the tomato seedlings (over 150 row feet) and seeded corn and pinto bean rows (200 row feet of corn, 100 of pintos) in the area of garden that K just got tilled. I started planting with the potatoes, pretty much in the middle of the garden, this spring. I was trying to keep a bit of separation between the 'maters and 'taters. I wanted to make the potato beetles WORK for their chow. LOL So the last of the tomato plants and a few peppers will go in beyond the corn and bean rows, adjacent to the potatoes.
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Deer Fence |
It consists of white plastic step in posts around the garden, with 2 strands of lightweight nylon monafilament fishing line stretched between them. Believe it or not, this actually keeps the deer out and has for the past 3 year. Even after they KNOW there is good stuff to eat inside (as they did the first few years, when I was slow getting the fence up) they will not go through it. They cannot see it to jump over and when the walk into it, I guess it's like us walking into a spider web unexpectedly.... the FREAK and RUN away. No, I have not seen this, but I have seen the gently stepping footprints walking up to the fence and, dug deeply into the muddy driveway, the tracks of the same animal departing on a different path.