A Very Nice Morning

Sweet potatoes vines that need to be tucked back into their beds

We have been having such hot and oppressively humid weather recently. I was sweating even when I went out early in the morning to do garden chores. But this morning it broke. The temperatures dropped as did the humidity. At 58F I even had to wear a sweater. I love mornings like this.

First corn succession starting to silk

I'm sure the corn prefers it a little hotter. I've been shaking the plants each morning to help pollinate the ears. Often I see swarms of of some kind of black bee on the tassels, but so far this year I've only see one or two.

It was also nice to see the other summer crops coming along well. These will be my first cucumbers in a day or so. Yesterday I picked my first small zucchini and three beans. Yes just three, but they will add up over time as more start to flower and produce. Remember only two plants survived the groundhog attack and the rest that were replanted have to catch up.

The lettuce hasn't been doing so well with the hot weather. The plants have been bolting before they size up. Some that have sized up are bitter. I ate my last salad last night. I don't know if I'll get to have other any time soon or not. The onions should have been picked already, but I never needed them. I'm now using the sweet onions as they bulb up.

Winter savory is in the upper left

This morning I picked and dried winter savory for the first time ever. I've tried in past years, but this is the first year it has done well. I love the scent. It is kind of like a lemony oregano.

I also picked some chard. I blanched about a pound this morning to put in the fridge for meals for the next few days.

While picking I noticed that some of the stems had spots on them. I've never seen this before. It only seems to be affecting the stems, and I don't eat the stems. I don't know if I should be worried about it or not.

Another thing I noticed was some leaf miners in the amaranth. They have attacked the green leafed ones, but not the red ones yet. I don't know if they are worth covering or not. Amaranth is a new crop for me. If the damage is small, I'll just pick off those leaves. If they damage most of the leaves, I'll have to cover them. I'm not growing these for grain, but for eating the leaves, so the leaves matter. Since my first carrot bed was starting to come up and one section of amaranth is by the carrots, I covered both of them at the same time. I'll leave the other amaranth section open and see how it does. A new crop always requires a bit of learning about how to grow it well.

It was just a lovely morning. I hope the low humidity lasts for a while.

Problems and Failures

You have to be a pretty optimistic person to garden. Taking a tiny seed and expecting it to become a four pound cabbage takes a lot of faith in mother nature. Every time I plant, I believe in that miracle. I never lose the wonder when it does grow, but sometimes we have failures. They aren't uncommon. Either our own mistakes get us or nature deals the blow. This week I had a some of both. Nothing devastating like the year the earwigs ate all the silks off my corn (only once, and never before or since thank goodness). Or the year the groundhog ate all my winter squash. Ouch. But this week had quite a list of little problems.

Turnips under a good row cover

Turnips seem to be getting the brunt of it right now. You know how I was doing such a good job with my succession sowing? Well this week I totally forgot until Sunday. I'm supposed to plant every Monday. Whoops! Well one week missed is not the end of the world. But for the poor turnips that wasn't all.

Turnips elsewhere struggling

At my last house I had a lot of issues with flea beetles, but they have been pretty mild here. They exist but don't do a lot of damage. Until now. They are doing enough damage to kill some of my newly sprouted turnips.

I don't spray here (except soap when the aphids get bad on the kale and broccoli), so my only recourse is to try to catch them. I won't catch them all, but the hope is to get enough that the damage won't hurt the plants too much. I brush the plants trying to get them to hop in the soapy water. I'll leave some of these bowls near the damaged plants. Over time some will die. Every day I'll chase more in. Hopefully it will be good enough.

In the other half of the bed with the turnips are my parsnips. Not many parsnips. Half the bed barely germinated and the half that was better is by no means full. I no longer have time to resow parsnips. They just take too long. If I had seed I'd use half that section to sow in amaranth. I've never grown that before. I think next year I'll try it. I could do mizuna but those flea beetles would probably take them down too. Maybe I should inter sow carrots. They have plenty of time. I will have two other carrot beds in the fall though. Will that be too many carrots? Is there such a thing as too many carrots? The issue with carrots is their germination is just as problematic as parsnips. I usually use a doubled over row cover on the soil to keep it moist. I can't do that with the parsnips growing. I could use one layer, or maybe just try without and hope. I'd have to water a lot.

Basil was one of the worst failures. I planted in three spots to try to avoid the basil downy mildew. That worked last year. One section went down fast, but the other was mildew free for most of the year. All three spots got hit already. So they all got taken out. Sigh. I did get a small harvest from the last one out. It was enough to dry so I can make Italian seasonings for this coming year, but not enough for much else. I do still have time to start again. Do I want to?

Chard bed

I love chard. It is such a good grower. I'm always amazed at the harvests I get from a small patch every year. One plant got pulled as it looked like it was starting to get diseased. I grow Argentata and it seems to handle the diseases we have around here. But safer to pull the bad one that isn't resisting so it won't spread. Also one end was getting holes in the leaves. I have this trouble every year. The earwigs take up residence in the centers and eat holes out of the youngest leaves. They can take a plant down if they get too numerous, though they usually don't.

Earwigs freak me out a little, but in the garden they can be a help and an hindrance depending on the crop. They are omnivores so eat other insects but if they like the crop they also eat that. I just don't grow Napa cabbage anymore because of the damage they do to that. Michihili cabbage works better. Sometimes they get in, but not as much. For chard I go on a search and destroy mission with my knife. They hide where the leaf meets the stem. I poke the tip of the knife down in there to get them. I won't get them all the first time. I'll go out for the next few days to get the rest. Then keep vigilant for the rest of the season. I used to mulch the chard to keep the leaves clean, but I found the earwigs had too many places to hide then.

The last one is in the Michihili/kohlrabi bed. Luckily it wasn't earwigs this time. Nope they started to bolt on me. I picked one earlier in the week that had started to bolt. Well I didn't check them for a couple of days and the next one did. So I picked them all. I was kind of hoping I wouldn't have to until next week. I'd probably be able to tell if my sauerkraut was working for me by then.

Chinese cabbage ready for the fridge

I stored most of them in the fridge. I wrap them in a damp flour cloth towel and just leave them in the main part. They are way too big to fit into anything. They are 20" long and have to go sideways in the fridge. They store pretty well. I can keep them fresh for about a month and a half to two months, but the problem is they take up so much space. And the other side of the bed is the kohlrabi. I think I have 15 or 16 of them in there. Some of them have sized up already and need to be picked soon. Winner doesn't get woody fast, but they are hard to cut when they get really large just because of their size.

And remember at the beginning of the month when I had the groundhog incursion? Well I shored up the defenses and it seems to be working. He hasn't come back. Most of the beans that he lopped off died, but four of them might make it. They have some tiny little green growth were the cotyledon leaves used to be. And the four seeds that I had left and replanted have come up and are growing pretty well. So I put up the strings to the trellis. The two plants that he didn't touch are growing strong and climbing the trellis supports. I think it was the trellis itself that saved them as they were behind the metal and harder to get to. So at least there is some good news there. My beans are recovering to an extent.

Planting the Chard

I did get out yesterday morning very early to plant my chard. I wanted to get them in before the rain started. The soil in the bed was very dry. Since we were getting rain I didn't worry about it. I didn't water the plants in either. I just left the soil block in its little hole without bringing the soil next to it. The rain washed the soil into the hole for me and watered.

The above photo really shows you how much I'm using row covers this year. I have mixed feelings about it. I really wish I could leave them off, but I know how much better the plants do when I have them. Two of the row covers you see are for the leaf miners (chard and spinach). Many of the leaves would be ruined without them. The leaf minters start laying eggs around mid May, but it varies. The other is over the onions for the onion flies. Even without the flies my storage onions have issues with rotting in storage because of the diseases we have. With the holes the flies make, they wouldn't make it more than a month or two. So I'm continuing to use them and appreciating them. But part of me wishes I could just leave them off.

My MIL flew in on Monday. I had a pile of dirty flats piling up by my back door. Guests are always a good way to get you to clean up things you have been putting off.

Not much is going on for the rest of the week until the mulch comes in on Thursday. I've planted all that I can until the mulch is spread. I do have one plant still on order that could show up - a serviceberry. So I have a couple of days off which is kind of nice as the weather is bad and I've been doing things every day for the garden since the good weather came in.

Hopeful Seeding

With the cold weather we have had I'm not really sure when to start my main indoor plantings. We had been having weather about 10F degrees below normal. But things seem to be moderating. Our average temperatures for the end of March are supposed in the low 50s. If I ignore Saturday which is predicted to be in the mid 30s, we will be getting that for the next week with some higher temps and some lower temps, but about what it ought to be. So some nicer weather. My seeding plan says I start my main plantings on March 20th. I decided to start them yesterday not quite a week late. I'm still a bit worried whether it will be warm enough by mid April to plant them. But I'm hopeful.

I love soil blocks, but not everyone does. I use the 1 1/2" ones for almost everything. Today I calculated that I needed 180 blocks. That makes 2 1/2 flats of them. One flat was filled with all the baby Asian greens. Usually I don't grow so many transplants of these. I often put in some for early greens, but then I direct seed the rest as it is less work that way. This year I won't have time to direct seed as the ground won't thaw soon enough. So I'm doing this batch and I'll do another smaller batch in a couple of weeks. This batch contained choy cum, Hon Tsai Tai, mizuna, tatsoi, and bok choy.

Covered to retain moisture until they germinate

The second flat was my other brassicas - Michihili, broccoli, three types of cabbage, kale, and kohlrabi. I wanted to do three different kinds of cabbage this year to try different early cabbages. I have Early Jersey, Point One, and Golden Acre.

The last half flat has my chard, marjoram, and savory. I've never had so many flats all in there at once. Usually my onions are already outside hardening off. At the most I might have three flats going. Often just two. But with switching what I grow this year (to get rid of most legumes) and the weather issues, I needed three lights turned on. I've never ever done that before. And if things don't melt out quickly enough I might just try to do spinach inside for the first time. Usually that isn't worth it, but I really want my spinach crop. We will see.

I'm So Behind

Why is it when you go on vacation and come back life is so hectic? It erases all that nice relaxation. Yesterday I had time to read two blog posts. I know I'll catch up, but it will take a while. Those really aren't my priority. Yesterday it was food shopping and cleaning up. I did go out to pick some vegetables for lunch at 12:15. I finally got to eat at 1:45. I should never go out to the garden for the first time right before lunch.

I noticed the broccoli had been knocked over by some storm while I was gone. I propped them all back up, but one head is really leaning sideways at this point. Then I noticed the chard had leaf miners in it. I had to clean all the eggs off the backs and pick off the bad spots. Then the cabbage was all bolting (in October?) so I picked what I could and cleaned that up. Sadly not much. I finally got to picking some carrots and green onions. I was pretty hungry by the time I fed myself.

I was noticing the date on the calendar. Usually the first weekend in November is the best time to pick up leaves to store for the next year. But I didn't have even one empty slot in my compost bins, much less the two that I need. So I finished sifting the compost out. One bin done. Today I've been working on the last leaf bin. There is a lot of good leaf mold in that bin, but it is mixed in with undecomposed leaves that need sifting out. It is a long slow process. I decided as I sifted I would put it on the finished beds. We are getting a freeze or frost on Sunday night so all the tender plants will die. So any tender plants could be removed.

I picked all the butternuts left in the bed. These set in September and might not really be good. I won't add them to the tally unless I can actually eat them. But for now I'll let them cure. They are such tiny little things.

Then I picked all the mustard seed off the plants. It is supposed to rain tonight and they don't need to get wet. They need to dry.

I have three large bags drying and one that I picked earlier in the year. So hopefully I'll have lots of mustard seed once they are all winnowed.

Then I brought a wheelbarrow filled with compost and leaf mold over to cover the bed.

So far I have three beds done with compost on them. Once they are covered with compost, I cover them with bird netting cut to size. This keeps the cats out. I just have five beds to finish and lots of leaf mold to sift through. I need to have it done by Sunday and I ought to be if I do three more tomorrow and two more on Friday.

And not to be forgotten I picked some seed from the zinnia. I like the yellow and red the best from these, so I chose seed from them. I couldn't find a lot of yellow as the plant had fewer flowers. I suppose I shouldn't choose fewer flowers for my seed, but the red one was the most abundant of all the plants, so maybe they will balance out in the end. I can always hope.

Things to get done this week in the garden: clean up five more beds, finish sifting leaf mold, pick all the chard and freeze, pick at least half of the kale and freeze, pick most of the parsley and freeze in cubes, pick and freeze any cilantro that is bolting, take down zinnias by the driveway as they are mostly dead, and collect leaves to fill two bins. Hopefully I won't find anything else that needs doing as that is enough. Oh yeah, and write my Garden Collective end of the month post.

Down They Come

After Removal

I had one huge wall of beans, but the Kentucky Wonder beans started with rust and it was just getting worse. They were producing, but not a lot. I decided they needed to come out along with the yard long beans next to them (they too were infected badly, in addition the KW beans had sent over vines and were mixing into them). I left up the Golden Gate beans. I've liked those beans. They keep putting out more flowers. It probably isn't enough to make much of a meal now, but we will see.

As you can see the chard in front of the beans now gets a lot more light. Well some of it at any rate. I noticed its production had dropped. I think with the less light due to the season and due to the beans was a bit much for it. I'm also detecting a bit of rot on the stems that isn't normal. This is the first time I've tried to grow chard with beans to the SE side of them. I knew it might hurt their production, but before this it hadn't. Behind the beans was some scraggly lettuce that I tried to grow over the summer. Not very well either. I figured the lack of light in the section would be enough to keep it going, but I'm not sure it got enough water. Now that some beans are out and the lettuce is out, I might rip out some of those onions as I'd like to use the section for some baby Asian greens. If so I'd better get to seeding them soon.

Right next to the bean bed is the cucumber and zucchini bed. I keep getting way, way too many cukes. So I figured I'd pull half the patch. That will also give more light to the area so my Asian greens will grow better. I've given away a lot of cucumbers. I'm getting sick of eating them every day and I love cucumbers. It is weird that I want to take down my beans and cucumbers because they are two of the veggies that I can count on every day. I guess I'm ready for a change. It is almost that season.

Maybe tomorrow I'll finally remove the hoops from the zucchini section now that I can reach it better. I really don't need those up. Funny how I don't notice it in the garden, but it is glaring in one of the photos.

The third thing I took down this weekend was the tarp that covered my drying onions. They looked very good. So I trimmed them up and braided them. They are now stored in the basement. I looked over the numbers and I did very very well in onions this year. I'll be more detailed about that in my Harvest Monday post.

Again I still left some work for myself. I haven't taken down the onion rack. But I'm sure I'll get to it this week. Then maybe I can deal with the compost. It won't be long before I need it to put over the beds in the fall.

Corn Down and a Chard Tart

More rain and stormy weather is predicted for today, but last night at 11:30 the first of the thunderstorms hit. They didn't last long, but they were intense.

A branch from our maple tree fell on one of my townhouse mate's car. Luckily there doesn't seem to be any damage. Hopefully the blueberry bushes under there survived too.

I surveyed the damage to the garden and as is typical when we get strong winds, the corn was flattened. I'm hoping it will right itself in the next couple of days. If not I'll help out with some stakes and twine.

I have corn in lots of spots now. All but one is down. The one that stayed upright was on the other side of the row cover above. The winds were such that the row cover protected it from the worst of it. Sadly two of the three white row covers didn't survive unscathed. I hold the edges down with rebar and rocks at the corners. This is usually enough to keep it in place, but not in a real wind storm. So many of the edges were up. Luckily not the zucchini as I'm sure any borers around would have taken advantage of that. Then I took advantage of the open covers myself. The newly germinated carrots were up so I took the time to weed and thin them out. Now I can probably ignore them for a while.

Now on to the tart. I was reading on Cold Hands Warm Earth that she had the BEST TART EVER. And since it uses chard I had to try it. Chard is just so prolific that if you can find a good recipe to use it up, life is good.

I used my frozen chard which made my life easier because I didn't have to wash and cook it. But it was also a problem as the recipe calls for a certain amount of raw chard. How much should I use? The recipe called for 3/4 of a pound. But cooked and frozen chard is not the same weight as fresh. Oh well I used up five packets for two tarts. I think it was a bit too much. Next time a tart will get two packets. I think that would be about right. That isn't to say more was bad, but it does make the tart heavy and hard to pick up for a party. And for me this is party food. The richness of puff pastry is not something I eat on a daily basis. Even with all that chard.

Though there seemed a bit much filling it wasn't too bad. And the filling tasted so good. The chard and chives came from the garden. But only half the onions did. I used up the last of the store bought onions and the garden ones are starting to size up. They aren't full sized yet, but good enough.

My biggest problem came with the puff pastry and the weather. I had the puff pastry defrosting in the fridge. It was well defrosted, but it was still cold. And inside the house was swimmingly humid. The pastry must have picked up the humidity from the air instantly. When I put it down on the cookie sheet, it stuck. I had to scrape it off to get it up and over the tart.

I think next time I make it I'm going to cut the puff pastry in half and do a long thin tarts. I think it will cut better that way. I had trouble cutting these small enough for a party. Sixteen smaller pieces for a tart would be better than the eight larger pieces I cut. Party food is always better small. Then more people can have some, and the people eating it don't have to commit to such a big portion. Not that I minded eating a big portion. I had three slices for lunch. Yummy!

Heat Wave

Well today is the third day in the a row of our heat wave. We have one more to go before it breaks. The last rain we had was on Thursday and we won't get rain until this coming Thursday. With the temperatures so hot I didn't think the plants could wait that long without it really hurting them. So I watered the whole garden this morning. Yesterday I was afraid the lettuce wouldn't make it so I harvested that. And the peas and the favas and some broccoli. Though I should have picked more of it today. I'll have to check tomorrow morning and probably bring in quite a bit.

My fridge is stuffed.

This morning I went out to pick the chard. I wanted to do it yesterday, but the heat chased me in. I figured the chard can handle the heat anyway. It does it every year. But I was shocked. Two of the plants had bolted. They have never ever done that before. I don't think it is the heat though, I think it was the cold spell we had so late in May. After warm weather maybe they thought they were going through winter. None of the others show signs of bolting. I would hate to lose the plants.

I harvested three bags full of chard. And you saw my fridge. There is no way it was going to fit. I really had to deal with processing some of the excess.

So I blanched and froze 11 servings of chard. They were fairly big servings too, but still something I can eat in a sitting without a problem. I don't need to freeze a lot more chard. A bit more though and I'll be set.

I've also started dealing with the fava beans. I know not everyone does, but I double peel my beans. I've got the first peeling done. Now I need to blanch them and do the second. I think I'll work on that in front of the TV as it gets a bit tedious. I'll freeze most of these for winter. They freeze very well and I'm inundated with food right now. However good they are, they can wait. Though maybe I'll save one serving out to eat. I do love fava beans.

Last week

Well I've been remiss in blogging. But I did get out to the garden to do a few chores last week. Wednesday I got out and put in my zinnias. First I had to pull out the lemon balm and the yarrow that I no longer wanted. I haven't been using the lemon balm and it self seeds here like crazy. The yarrow just isn't happy and the flowers flop all over. In addition multiple of the plants die every winter. They do self seed to a certain extent and I've used that to replace them. But they just aren't blooming enough. So I'm switching to just doing zinnias along this edge. I do have some herbs at the right edge. I've got a couple of French tarragon and some very very small winter savory. One of the zinnias is dying too so I think I'll put some basil in that spot when the basil get big enough (right not it hasn't even germinated yet).

The other section is by my neighbor's fence. He grows tomatoes on his side of the fence every year. And I grow zinnias and sweet alyssum to edge the bed. Previously they were full size zinnias that get about 3' high and need support or the wind blows them over. They are beautiful and put on quite a show, but it does block my neighbor's sun and is a pain to keep supported. This year I'm trying some new ones that only get to 18". Maybe that will be short enough so they can support themselves.

Friday I got out and finally put the netting row covers on some of the beds. This is the chard. The leaf miners start to come out around Mother's Day so I wanted to make sure I got the netting on before that.

I also covered the onions and carrots. Onion root maggots hit the peak of the first flight at 700 base 40F GDD. But that is the peak. I've hard the first ones can come out around 300-400. I use a spreadsheet and my weather station info to calculate the GDD. On Friday it was 410. So They needed to be covered. Also the carrots which are above the garlic. I've tried to find a number for the GDD for carrot maggots but can't. I know from my own experience that there is damage around the middle to end of June. It takes the maggot at least a month in the soil before you see any damage. The row cover probably needs to be up by the middle of May. So all three of these pests start to come out about the same time. But now they are safe.

On Saturday I went out and weeded the garden a bit. I really didn't NEED to do anything in the garden, but it was such a beautiful day. I just wanted to be out.

I noticed that my rosemary in the circle garden had definitely died. One more is hanging in there, but barely. And one survived and is nice and green, if a bit small. So I layered a couple of branches from that rosemary. Once they are rooted I'll scatter them around the garden. I want to keep my Arp alive at least somewhere. And different winters kill off different ones. Rosemary really isn't hardy here. Our lowest lows for the year tend to be around -3F to -5F (-20C). And really hard years like this tend to kill even the hardiest rosemary plants. Having different locations gives them an extra chance to live. I think the winter winds killed the one in the circle garden. But the one that lived was protected from those winds. But that section dries out a lot since it is near the foundation of the house and can be in a rain shadow. So sometimes that one dies and other ones live. It just depends upon the year.

I probably won't replace the rosemary in the circle garden though. I think the circle will look better if I put the winter savory there. It is shorter like the other plants in the circle. I'm not sure where they will go, but I'll find a couple good spots somewhere. Maybe one along the fence where the zinnias are growing.

I did a lot of weeding on Saturday. Some of those weeds were little tiny lettuce plants. I decided to transplant about 12 of them. I can tell which ones are Red Sails, but the other ones could be anything as they are just nondescript green leaves.

I had two beds that needed cleaning out. I cleaned out one and put on the bone char which I'm using in place of compost this year. I'll see how it works. I still need to buy two bags of compost for the last bed. I should have done that last week when I was at the store buying more rebar, but didn't even think of it. Oh well. My husband ought to be traveling again sometime so I can have the car. I'm not about to bring home heavy bags on the bus.

Broccoli and Chard

I meant to get the chard in the ground on Sunday, but I was having a relapse of my flu and it didn't get done. I so hate the flu. I get a flu shot every year as I have asthma. And I haven't had the flu in over a decade. This one lasted 12 days. But yesterday I woke up feeling good. Finally. While I had the flu I did get some work done in the garden, but I didn't really enjoy it. Things needed to get planted so I planted. But yesterday I reveled in being in the garden again. So I was out for a couple of hours enjoying myself.

Usually I put the chard and the broccoli in the same bed. But this year I'm not growing any dry beans. I'm 95% sure I can't eat them anymore due to food intolerances. But if I can, I have good access to locally grown heirloom dried beans. This means I can grow more broccoli and I can put the chard in a separate bed. I'm still growing some green beans. Usually I put a row along the back of the bed, but I wanted lettuce and onions in this bed too. And if they are along the back then there is one foot of the bed that is really hard to reach. So I decided to put the pole beans in the middle of the bed. They will get planted once the soil warms up more. Lettuce and bunching onions will be along the front. And I planted chard in the back. Hopefully the chard will really take off before the beans start to block the sun. The back is the north west side of the bed. I'm hoping the chard can take the partial shade. I know lettuce can especially in the summer, but I didn't want it to be on the western side as the afternoon sun can be really hot and they might bolt too quickly.

Once my galvanized steel wire comes. I'm going to make some hoops to go over the chard and I'll put on a netting row cover. That bolt of brown netting is going to last a while even though I'm using it a lot. I have found that the brown fades though. And it fades to green which looks really pretty in the garden. Luckily it didn't fade to some weird color like purple. The green haze on the garden looks nice. So much nicer than the white Agribon.

And speaking of covers, I know I have to tell people why I've got all that bamboo and chicken wire on the chard bed. The cats here are terrible. If I don't keep the soil covered they will leave gifts for me. So the soil always stays covered. I have a lot of 4'x 8' pieces of bird netting that I tack down when the bed isn't in use or seeds are starting to sprout. The hardest time is when I've got plants sprouting but they aren't big enough yet to keep the cats out of the beds. I can't keep the netting on for most plants as the stems get big. Or like this bed, I've still got things that need to go in. And transplants don't go through netting very well. So I do a hodge podge of things. Soon I'll have to get the old tomato cages out because they work well too.

I also put in the broccoli. I thought about putting three rows in, but I figured it would be too crowded that way. There is extra space there through. So I put a row of turnips down the middle. I'm not sure the turnips near the radishes will have time to size up before the melons need to be planted in June. But I might be able to seed the melons around the turnips.

I also checked my carrots. They were up. I took off the agribon that I used to germinate them and I put on a netting row cover. I hadn't covered these in the past. But toward the end of June I start to get carrot fly damage. And I can't leave them in longer or they get unusable. But it isn't quite long enough to get good sized carrots, even with the fast growers that I use in the spring. So yet more row covers. I swear some day the whole garden will be covered.

If the rain holds off then I'll be planting my zinnia today. I also want to get in some cilantro as it hasn't self seeded very well. Though it might just be taking its time to germinate. In fact a lot of things are taking their own sweet time this year. And luckily that includes the weeds. Usually I have to weed the garden pretty vigorously in the spring. I do have to go out and weed a few things now, but there were very few weeds out there. I guess that is the bright lining to a very harsh winter. The cilantro didn't overwinter, but neither did the weeds.