Planting Time Again

This year, we haven't had much of a spring. We jumped right into summer even though summer is still officially a month away. As the days got into the 80s and then into the 90s, I thought about planting my garden but I resisted the temptation. The average last frost date for our area is around May 15. Last spring there was a late killing frost that devastated a lot of delicate plants. I didn't want to risk it this year. I kept to my conservative schedule that has worked well for me over the last ten years.

Let's get this party started!

Step one was to start some seeds indoors. I did this on April 18. It wasn't a big year for seed starting. I decided to take the easy way and purchase my tomatoes and peppers from the local nursery. All I really planned to start were some herbs. I used Jiffy starter pellets (love them!) and my long-used starter trays to plant three cells each of parsley, thyme, and basil. And since I had the whole grow light set-up going, I checked the viability of some seeds. We had some old adzuki beans lying around that I added to the tray (spoiler: not a single one sprouted). We also had some seeds that we had saved from a Long Pie pumpkin given to my husband by a coworker some years ago and some One Too Many pumpkin seeds I took from our fall decor purchased at a local farm stand. Side note: I got some gorgeous mums from the same stand so I plan on making the effort to get more this fall. I planted three each of the pumpkins and one of each grew. 

Two out of six ain't bad, I guess.

Step two was to directly sow the cool weather seeds. (cool weather, ha!) I did this on April 27. I put in peas, beets, carrots, chard, arugula, and baby pak choi. As of today, the pak choi and arugula are going like gang busters. I have about half a dozen pea plants, a few more tiny chard plants, and maybe a dozen beets slowly growing. The carrots are non-existent. That's probably because of the age of the seeds. They were from 2018 but I figured I'd try anyway. Oh well. A few dill plants seeded themselves. As for the perennials, the chives are doing beautifully, as always, the asparagus is producing faster than we can eat it, and the rhubarb is thriving after I split it. I finally got enough in one harvest to make a full pie rather than just a tart.

Our version of cooling the rhubarb pie on the windowsill.

So, that brings us to step three. I planted the rest of the garden today. I always like to plant on Memorial Day weekend. Step 3a was transplanting our seedlings. Along with my nine herb plants, two pumpkins, and five Greek basil cuttings propagated by my husband, we had a beefsteak tomato, a grape tomato, a tomatillo, and a pepperoncini pepper purchased from one of our local nurseries. (I was a bit disappointed when I saw the plants were brought into the nursery from a larger company but it was still supporting a small business.)

We gave the young 'uns a week of hardening off before putting them out into the big world.

I've always heard that pumpkins resent being transplanted. I'm not sure how true that is. The last time I tried starting pumpkins indoors then planting them out, crows found the seedlings within a day and tore them out of the ground. If I was a pumpkin, I'd probably resent that. I'm hoping our big guys will settle into the garden well this year.

Come on buddy! Think happy thoughts!

Step 3b is putting in the seeds. This year I planted my usual round of beans (purple, turtle, and rattlesnake), as well as, zucchini, cucumbers, parsnips, and daikon. I put in more peas as well to fill out the row and tried my version of a three sisters garden with strawberry popcorn, the long pie pumpkin, and rattlesnake beans all in the same bed together.

If you look carefully you can see the beans below the twine and the red popcorn in the foreground. And don't forget the pumpkin lurking in the back.

So, there it is. The garden is in! I patted the seeds and told them to "do their duty." Then we watered them in and did a little rain dance so it would rain this afternoon. (It did but not yet as much as I would have liked so far.) I'm looking forward to see how everything grows!

And now on to the obligatory critter shots. Here is a rabbit chilling next to our house.

We had to make some repairs to the fence to keep the bunnies out of the garden this year. I know we've let them have babies there for several years (see here and here and here too) but the inn is now closed. So, we added a layer of chicken wire around the bottom of the fence where the rabbits had been getting in. It doesn't keep the chipmunks out but we seem to be bunny-free so far. (knock on wood!)

Notice how the black mesh is neatly chewed off to allow bunny entrance.

 And finally, here's a baby bird in our cedars.

Maybe a baby cardinal?

 

Sabbath of The Land

The 2022 growing season fell right in the middle of the Shmita, the last year in the seven-year agricultural cycle when the land is allowed a rest from farming. With no big plans for cultivation, we decided to observe the sabbatical year. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, "Jewish law prohibits farming, tilling soil, planting seeds, plowing, harvesting, and pruning during the Shmita year." We are a mixed household, and since I am only Jew-ish (as designated by our rabbi), I chose not to follow the letter of the law. I do feel like I honored the spirit of Shmita, though.

A blank canvas

I had cleared out the garden the previous fall so had a figurative blank slate come spring. Our perennial plants - asparagus, rhubarb, chives, and horseradish - were left to do their thing without any harvesting. For the rest of the garden, I decided to plant flowers. I purchased several packets of "wildflower" seed blends as well as some zinnias, morning glories, and sweet peas.

The zinnias made a good showing.

We got one morning glory and zero sweet peas.

Some of the previous year's vegetables had seeded themselves too. Early on, tomato plants and various squashes appeared. Oddly, most of them disappeared again as the flowers came in. It's like they just gave up and dissolved away as  bright blooms surrounded them.

One small acorn squash that was soon overpowered by flowers.

The tomatoes looked lovely but I let them go.

As seems to be tradition, we had a family of bunnies enjoying the relative peacefulness of the untended garden. I wonder if the mama rabbit is the same every year or if it's one of the babies all grown up who comes back. Or maybe we've seen several generations since the first rabbit snuck into the garden. I'm just glad the sweet little things have found a safe place.

There was also a grand toad who had taken up residence. His movements in the beds left stream-like trails through the plants.

Always good to have a guard toad.

Overall, it was nice to see the garden going back to nature, so to speak. The flowers were lovely and I enjoyed the messy magic of the beds. I was glad to bring them back to orderly vegetables this year, but look forward to doing this again in seven years.

These babies enjoyed the peacefulness of the garden from the outside.