Sunday, April 26, 2009

Veggies are growing

I actually started growing cabbage, broccoli (another disastrous attempt- all eaten), garlic, lettuce, radishes, and spinach outside before the garden was even completely put together.

Garlic from Ron got planted in the new bed next to the cinderblock shed:


Some cabbage, spinach, the three remaining broccoli plants, and tiny, tiny radishes on the back porch:


Other things are doing well inside. I have a good number of tomatoes and peppers going right now. My experience last year was that many of these aren't going to make it because of disease, insects, and hail, so I'm trying to grow at least as twice as many as I think I actually want.

Garden Progress

So, the garden is finally "constructed"- or at least the main section of the garden is now mulched, irrigated, and fenced.

I merged two of the six planting squares in the hopes that it will be easier to grow peas and beans:


Newspaper goes under the cinderblock walls to keep some of the grass from encroaching into the garden:


The garden today, with the fence almost done. I put deer netting up again, but only at half height. Seems like the rabbits are much more of a problem than deer!


Here's what it looked like in February:

Changing seasons

It's been a while since I posted anything here, so I figure I'll just do a compare and contrast between winter and spring. Actually, there always seems to be very little middle ground here- we swing back and forth between hot and cold in the spring.

For example, here's the thermometer today, just before noon:


And here's the thermometer about a month ago (note that I did not care to go outside to take the picture!):


Here's a view from March:


And from February:


And here's what the view looked like in early April:


Of course, we are still getting occasional frosts at night. Here are some super-cool ice crystals which appeared overnight on the trunk of my car last week: