Good gravy, it's been awhile since I posted. Sorry, hope you haven't given up on me altogether. It's 12:30 am and I would really like to get to bed before sunrise, so I'll try to make this quick. Here's what's been keeping me from posting more regularly.
This time of year is very busy in the garden. Tilling, planting, weeding, weeding, and more weeding. The picture above shows some of my tomato plants, getting acclimated to the outside. My started-at-home tomato seedlings got that weird fungus again this year -- I got it two years ago and it wiped out my plants. This year it hasn't wiped them out, not yet. I put ten of the best looking ones out in the garden, but bought another twelve from a friend, so at least I will have some tomatoes this summer, if not enough to can.
I'm not sure where the fungus came from -- it started with my Wapsicon Peach heirlooms, so maybe it was in the seed I ordered from Seed Savers. But then my tomato friend told me she got a fungus when she re-used unwashed pots from one year to the next, which is something I did this year. Guess I'll have to sanitize my pots over the winter. A good soak in a bleach solution should hopefully do the job. Live and learn.
Here are some of my sugar snap peas, doing very well. Just saw my first pea blossom today.
My pumpkin (sugar pie) seedlings are doing well too. I planted eight of them. I'll get a lot more squash from the three sisters garden I planted at work.
I spent six hours in the garden today, planting tomatoes and beans. And weeding. And weeding. And then some more weeding. Did I ever tell you how much I hate Canada Thistle? I really really hate Canada Thistle. It spreads via seed and via rhizomes, which are roots that run a few inches under the surface of the soil, resprouting in likely places along the way. Today, I actually pulled a Canada Thistle shoot out of the top of a bale of straw in my garden. The stupid thing had grown up through the bale -- through fifteen inches of compacted straw to reach the surface. This tells me that mulch is worthless against thistle. I'm liking my steel sheeting mulch idea more and more. Although I wouldn't be completely surprised if I saw a thistle shoot breaking through the steel later this summer. I hate thistle.
3 comments:
Holy cow you stayed up late! And after hours of pulling weeds in the garden! How do you do it? That's backbreaking work too...did the boys "help"? Any varmints getting into your garden? Did you plant any flowers this year?
Simon lets me sleep in usually if I stay up late. Although this morning boys were loud so no such luck.
No varmints, the garden is caged all around. No flowers either, just boring (yet tastey) veges.
Aren't you at all tempted to grow any flowers? You and I are so opposite with our gardens... The only veggies I grow are cherry tomatos! Oh yeah, I have parsley and basil...That's it though!! I try to color coordinate my flowers in the front...this year it is pinks and reds...So, no marigolds or purple petunias!!! I might do pinks and yellows next year though...I planted geraniums from seeds (the seeds came from the last year's flowers which came from seeds from Gertens the year before...) So, I have third generation geraniums in my front yard!! The only problem is that they grow so HUGE compared to the other flowers I have out that they look kinda ridiculous. They look like good sized bushes!! Oh well...
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