Back in the Garden Again

The 2016 gardening season is in full swing now. Nearly everything is planted in the garden and we’ve already been able to pick some things. It is wonderful to be in the second year of a garden. The chives were up and ready to use by the middle of April and on the 25^th of that month we had our first asparagus. We made a rhubarb pie on May 7^th. We had to supplement the fresh rhubarb with some frozen from last year to fill the crust but it tasted very good. The strawberries are coming back strong as well.

Garden at rest in mid-April

Home-grown asparagus - yum!

As usual, I spent much of late winter/early spring poring over seed catalogs and working out my garden layout. After the fungus on the chard and beets last year I had to make sure I rotated things around this year. That’s just good practice anyway, but it did lead to a lot of erasing on my plan. I thought I had it all set when I realized I had put the tomatoes where the potatoes were last year and that’s a no no. So, I had to make some changes but finally got everything worked out.

Potatoes starting to peek through

I put the first seeds in the ground on April 29 – scallions, beets and arugula. At the beginning of May we put in the potatoes, carrots, pak choi, chard, snap peas and garden peas. Since then we have been battling squirrels who think their nuts are still stashed in the garden from last winter. In all fairness, I have pulled out two acorns that were on their way to turning into oak trees so the squirrels are not entirely wrong.

An oak tree in the garden? I don't think so.

Nearly every day there were new little drill holes in the raised beds. I wouldn’t mind the digging so much if it didn’t disturb the new seedlings. The only seeds the tree rats seem to actually be digging up and eating are the snap peas which have been entirely cleaned out. All the other plants are just collateral damage of the digging. I tried dusting everything with cayenne pepper but that seemed to have no effect. I probably didn’t use enough. One container got spread over the entire garden. I have some other pepper-based repellent on the way from Amazon so we’ll see how that works.

The Enemy

The strawberry bed seems to be a favorite place for the squirrel digging. Again, they have not damage the plants, they are just digging everywhere among them. I worried that when the strawberries actually did come on that the squirrels would finally turn their attention to the berries. After waiting over a year for the fruit myself, I am not about to give them up to the squirrels or the chipmunks or the birds, for that matter. So, I got some bird netting and made a little cage over the plants. I got that done a few days ago and so far so good. (fingers crossed)

Protecting the strawberries

I just got the rest of the seeds in the ground yesterday. The list is similar to last year – corn, pumpkins, beans, cucumbers, summer squashes, acorn squash. I gave up on some vegetables I planted last year like kale, turnips and spinach and have added watermelon radishes to the mix. I started several plants indoors earlier in the spring but I forgot to start hardening them off until yesterday morning so I’m not ready to plant them out yet. I’ll write more about starting the seeds in my next post.

View of the garden on May 28

My husband asked me the other day if it actually saved any money growing produce ourselves or if it was cheaper to just buy vegetables at the grocery store. My first thought was that it must be less expensive at the store, especially if you figure in the time we put in to keep the garden running. Of course that’s one of my favorite parts of gardening so I hesitate to consider that an expense. So, I decided to run some numbers. This year, we spent $23.89 on seeds and $55.77 to amend the soil. We also spent $374.87 for everything needed to start seeds indoors. That’s a grand total $454.53 (so far). Will the garden produce that much store-quality veg? I don’t know. If it does, great. If not, well, at least I had a great time playing in the dirt!

Pak choi seedling

Strawberry blossoms

Arugula before thinning

Chive blossoms

Garden pea seedling