GARDENING AGAIN

We planted our garden a few days before the May long weekend which is about the usual time for planting around here.  This year we put in 4 rows of seeds and bedding plants instead of 5 so there is more room between the rows for the rototiller.  We also decided to put soaker hoses along each row rather than doing the overhead sprinklers which weren’t very effective, especially on windy days.  Stuart built an irrigation manifold to connector all 4 soaker hoses together with one line running from the tap.  Here’s what it looks like:

It seems to be working well but some of our seedlings are having a slow start.  I used older seeds from previous years and think that they aren’t viable any more.  The beets are really slow but the beans, carrots and peas are doing well now.  We planted strawberries last year and now that they are well established, they are going to produce a good crop this year

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My roses had a hard winter and I had to cut them back almost to the ground.  We added lots of manure, bonemeal and mulch to them and they finally started growing and are look very healthy now.  These are the first roses of the season.

We planted our squashes outside the garden in our “deer free” yard this year, putting some of them on the west side of the house where we used to have flowers behind wire and in between some of the woody shrubs near the back of the shop.  Now that the yard is deer proof, we can have them wherever we want.  Here’s a happy zucchini.

It will be a while before we can harvest much more than radishes, strawberries and lettuce but having our own produce is well worth the wait.