How the Garden Grows

The other day, my husband and I were enjoying our morning coffee and tea on our back porch when a movement in the garden caught my eye. “There’s a squirrel in the garden,” I declared. “I don’t think it’s a squirrel,” my husband replied. “That’s the rabbit.”

Bunny enjoying a break in this evening’s rain

I recalled that part of the fence behind the asparagus was missing a cross piece. That must have been where the bunny got into the garden. So, we went out to evict the furry little creature. As I contemplated how we were going to capture the rabbit or chase it out with the least amount of disruption to the plants, it leapt at the fence and wiggled its way through the latticework. I didn’t think the spaces in the fence were large enough for it to fit through until I saw it with my own eyes. Long story short, later that day we added additional mesh to the fence. Other than some disturbed soil by the peppers where the rabbit probably made its entrance and a sampled beet green, the garden was unscathed.

Nearly-invisible added protection against ferocious bunny rabbits

 In addition to the unexpected potential of rabbit predation on the garden, we also discovered that flea beetles had been sampling some of the vegetables. The eggplants seem to be a particular favorite of the tiny insects but we found them on several other plants including the pak choy and the pumpkins. In the past, I have found Seven to be a mighty powerful weapon against the bugs but it is also mighty toxic to everything (including people). Since many of the greens were getting ready to harvest and eat and we’d rather not kill everything that enters the garden, we decided on diatomacious earth to discourage the beetles. So far, so good.

Other gardening chores over the last several days included laying straw around the strawberries and tomatoes, stringing line for the rattlesnake beans to climb and thinning the abundance of kohlrabi, turnip and kale seedlings.

Strawed berries and pak choy dusted with diatomaceous earth

Last Wednesday, I harvested our first vegetables from the garden – arugula with a few leaves of spinach and some baby beet greens and chard for color. We’ve enjoyed a couple salads so far and I’ve been able to make a second harvest of the greens. I love that at least part of the salad I eat for lunch at work has come from my own garden. I can’t wait until I can add other veggies to the greens.

The garden’s first harvest

Plenty more arugula to pick

There are ten gorgeous pak choy plants in the garden and they are all ready to be harvested. I have picked a few for tomorrow’s dinner but I can’t let the rest of them sit in the garden too much longer. I’ve done a little searching for pak choy recipes and will probably be experimenting with pickling and freezing over the next few days. Stay tuned for a report. Next year, I’ll have to remember to plant a few seeds at a time a couple weeks apart so they aren’t all ready at the same time.

Big, beautiful pak choy