This Week in My Garden: May 7, 2015
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And so it begins.
There's nothing particularly inspiring about the garden right now, except that there are sugar snap seeds in the ground and a trellis to support them once they're growing.
Aside from those little guys, things are looking...rough.
The first snow last winter surprised us, and we didn't get the garden (or our yard, for that matter) cleaned up. So I'm making my way through the beds, pulling out the old dead plants and piles of leaves and pine needles and putting in topsoil and compost.
The weather is unusually hot right now - at least the highs (80s), so we'd probably be fine putting everything in the ground. But it still feels early, and I'm waiting for that last cold snap. The peas are hearty and the one thing I absolutely knew we'd be planting because I could probably eat a whole garden's worth by myself.
Because we belong to a CSA and get a farm share during the summer, we've been factoring that in to what we'll grow - aka things we wouldn't mind having a ton of (from the CSA + from our garden) or things that we really want to preserve for winter. And we're also conscious of not overwhelming ourselves, which has happened to some extent for the last two years. We get busy with work and let the kale get mauled by slugs or the basil get devoured by Japanese Beetles. So we're trying to be realistic. Hence a full bed of wildflowers just for the prettiness factor.
Here's the plan:
As you can see, we still have some holes to fill.
We're continuing with a few things that haven't worked out in the past in the hopes that changing position in the bed to get more sun might help (tomatoes, zucchini, melons). The last two years I've ended up with pounds of green tomatoes in September, and while I love green tomato salsa, I'm really looking for some red ones to cook with and preserve. We got a squash mold last year on our melons, zucchini, and delicata squash that took them out completely. I think we got two tiny zucchini and 2 delicatas. I'll be on the lookout for that this year and watering in the morning instead of the evening so that the plants have a chance to dry out during the day.
Cucumbers aren't on the plot right now. I'm on the fence. We had such a tough time with them last year, I think because of lack of pollination.
Our chives haven't come up, which is making me nervous because I think they usually have by now. And I'm afraid that the thyme and rosemary didn't overwinter successfully. I keep checking every day, but still no sign of life.
What you can't see here are our blueberry bushes and raspberry bushes on the other side of the yard. We planted the raspberry bushes last year and got a nice small crop.
I can't wait for the days when I come home from work and walk through the beds with a big bowl, picking off the ripe fruits and veggies to bring inside. I still think it's a miracle.
Link to your garden posts if you have one, or tell me what's happening this week in your garden in the comments.
p.s. Our 2013 garden
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