Starting the New Garden

 

Although this picture is only taken two weeks ago during the last week of March, our garden actually officially got started three weeks before that, days before we left for Greece. With a spate of warm weather and rain in the forecast, we planted some early crops such as radishes, lettuce and peas. We hope the forecasted rain would provide the necessary moisture and indeed according to my electronic rain gauge, we received 1.3 inches of rain while we were in Greece. 

The first week after we got back was very cold and so not a lot happened but by the following weekend, it was threatening to get a little warmer. Snow was still in the forecast for a bit further north of here but none predicted for our area. After that passes, it is supposed to warm up again. In an effort to encourage spring, we decided to work in the greenhouse and task number one was using my newly refurbished hose reel to fill up the water barrel which it did quite easily compared to the lugging of many buckets of water down the hill.

Above is our garden that is growing despite this cold weather and threats of snow. The obvious row is lettuce. There is a row of radishes to the right which have not come up. On the far side of the garden we planted two rows of peas and they are just starting to poke out of the ground so don't really show up as a row just yet. We are hoping to put in some more peas this coming weekend as well as some potatoes and onions. 

As you can see in the above two pictures, I did install my net fence to prevent deer damage. We used the exact same thing on one side of our garden down at the farm so we could easily get larger farm equipment inside if needed. It worked really well though it blew down once in a strong gale. After that I installed metal fence posts occasionally to help support it and never had any problems. This came with fiberglass poles to do the same thing and also allow me to electrify it if needed. Because I don't want to have to mess with fussy fence charging systems, I haven't bought one yet and am just going to take a wait and see approach. We aren't planning on sweet corn so I'm not too worried about raccoon damage. We have a healthy hawk population that keeps the rabbit population in check. The only thing I'm really worried about are moles and an electrified fence can't stop them anyway.

After the water barrel was filled, I helped my wife in the greenhouse mostly cleaning and organizing while she planted seeds. We have flats of basil, leeks, and paste tomatoes started. I'm sure we will start more but since our greenhouse is unheated and there is still below zero weather in the forecast, we aren't putting in all our seeds yet just in case. It is going to be so nice to grab a flat of seedlings, walk 10 feet and stick them in the ground. 

Finally, along side of the greenhouse, between it and the garden, I bought a couple sad looking rhubarb plants on deep discount last summer and stuck them in the ground. Because it was so dry, I had to water them the rest of the year but they seemed to have survived and are sprouting up again. I hope to plant some more of them this spring and this will be my official rhubarb patch for years to come. My mom always had several plants growing but they eventually died off and we haven't had any plants of our own for many years now. I did plant one down at the farm a couple years ago but since we aren't planning on going down there regularly, it will be nice to have some closer to home.

On order are some asparagus crowns to start a new bed somewhere up behind our house. I tried digging up some of the crowns from down on the farm but the soil was so hard and dry, it bent my heavy duty potato fork. Since those crowns are getting long in the tooth at around 25 years old or more, I thought it better just to start over again with new stock though it will mean being without our own asparagus for a couple years until I can get it established. At least asparagus is fairly easy to come by in the grocery store though fairly expensive. 

That brings everything up to date as of two weeks ago. I'm sure I'll have a lot more posts this summer as we do what we love, growing our own veggies, in a new garden behind our house.