Harvest Monday, May 14, 2012

It was a huge harvest week this week. Basically it was Asian greens, spinach, and radishes with two stalks of rhubarb thrown in.

• Greens 12.16 lbs
• Radish 3.24 lbs
• Weekly total 15.39 lbs
• Yearly total 66.91 lbs
• Tally -$423.99

• Fruits 
• Rhubarb 0.42 lbs

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

A Hot Weekend

First I'd like to wish everyone a happy Mother's Day. Tonight my son will be in and tomorrow my daughter is flying in to stay for a couple of months. But Sundays are always Mom's Day here. My two kids, my husband and I all get together for online games together. We play all day. There is never much time for gardening except in the morning. My son doesn't get up until 10am so I've got several hours early on if I need it. And if I can get my butt out the door that early.

Today I did get out. The first chore was to harvest most of the radishes. They were all getting big. I took out all the French Breakfast but left just the White Icicle. I figured I'd plant beans around them. As you can see not many radishes are left. Just a small amount.

A couple of the radishes have been munched by the squirrels I think. The mocking birds haven't been doing a good enough job of chasing them off.

Then I decided to plant the beans, all eight varieties. I filled a whole 4'x16' bed with beans. Most of these are dried beans, but I do have Kentucky Wonder pole and Masai bush for green beans. The Masai is an early bean and I'm hoping will fill the gap before the pole beans start to produce. Then when they are done, I want to plant the same ones again for the fall. The pole beans peter out towards fall after they have produced for months. So I'm looking for a long green bean season.

The northern most side is where the pole beans went along the foot at the back. And the three feet in the front are all the bush beans. Some of the seed was from just buying dried beans at the store. I used Baer's Best Beans since they are a Massachusetts company. I'm just praying they are all bush and not pole beans. But it is hard to imagine even a small farm erecting trellises for pole beans.

Just in case the beans don't make it, I have extra seed of everything except Tiger Eye. If they don't make it I'll plant something else there instead. It is a bit early for the beans. But today it got to 87F so I'm thinking it was a good decision. Though the soil has been getting down to 55F at night which is too cool for beans. But fine in the day at around 60F-65F. With today's brief hot spell, I'm guessing it will get into the 70Fs.

Yesterday was warm too, but not quite as much as today was. This has sent my earliest planted baby choys into bolting. So I harvested all the Shanghai bok choys and much of the tatsoi that I'd thinned earlier in the week. That half of the bed is mostly empty. There is a bit of self seeded dill and lettuce, but not a lot else. I still have the other half of the bed that was planted later (after the abnormal hot weather at the end of March and beginning of April). Those later planted greens have had fabulous greens weather. This is the first bad hot spell they have seen so far. I hope they don't start bolting like the others. As it is I have too many Asian greens in the fridge. I just can't eat them all. Though I do try to eat a lot of them. I had stir fry for lunch (no rice, no meat, just lots of veggies and some cashews) and am thinking about fried rice for dinner. Maybe tomorrow I'll make a slaw.

But the last set of extras was successfully given away. Hopefully this next set will be too. I'm going to give my townhouse mates the first crack at it as I usually do. But if they still have too many greens in their fridge hopefully I'll find someone else that likes them. I've definitely hit over abundance.

A Little Work in the Garden

I haven't been outside in the garden very much this week. I've been feeling a bit under the weather. Or maybe under the oak pollen might be a better metaphor. My husband keeps telling me I need hobby that doesn't take me outside as my allergies have been getting worse as I age. But I have been out in the garden a little. I noticed the Fiesta broccoli was all flopping over in the windstorms we have had. So I staked the five of them. The Windsor broccoli that is in the upper left corner is doing fine. It has nice strong stems.

Since I had the row cover up, I looked at the chard too. The chard is ready for its first picking. I'll have to deal with that sometime. But not today. I'm tired and headachy today so I'm staying inside.

While I was staking, I staked the cilantro that is going to seed. It always gets top heavy and then falls over.

Well the focus is bad but you can see that behind the tall wall of cilantro is my sunflowers. I hope they are getting enough light. Probably not. But honestly my coriander is more important than the sunflowers. I grow the sunflowers for the birds, but the cilantro flowers are for the bees. And the coriander is for me.

Remember last week when I said the other half of the spinach would be harvested. Well here it is. The weather has been perfect for greens. It has been wet and cool. I may not be able to plant my beans and cukes yet, but the greens are loving it.

And see that? No not the spinach being washed and blanched to be frozen. But the sunshine coming through my kitchen window. We finally got some sun. Today and tomorrow are supposed to be 80F (27C) and mostly sunny. So if it keeps up I could plant those beans. But right now the weather is supposed to turn back to rainy and cooler. But maybe warm enough. I might just plant those beans soon. As long as I have enough seed to replant if needed there is no reason not to try soon.

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard

I've recently harvested a lot of komatsuna. Komatsuna is often called mustard spinach, but in reality it is in the same species as turnips. So this one tastes a lot different than many of the other Asian greens. And despite its name I find that it doesn't have a very intense mustard flavor. Though it can be eaten raw, I tend to like it cooked better. The most common way I cook it is just lightly steam it and the dress it with soy sauce and sesame seed oil.

But I had some Baby Bella mushrooms that needed to be eaten, so I decided to get a little more fancy. I sauteed the mushrooms in a little oil. Then added a chopped clove of garlic when the mushrooms were almost done. I don't like my garlic browned like is done in some recipes so I usually add it later to the dish than many do. But I do like it in the oil long enough to flavor it. Then I added the chopped komatsuna leaves and some sake and soy sauce, so the leaves could steam as they cooked. With an Asian green like bok choy I tend let the sweet flavors predominate. But with Komatsuna I like more of the umami flavors. So mushrooms make a great pairing.

And many of you may think I always cook from scratch. Well you would be wrong. I do most of the time. But sometimes I'm tired. Sometimes I don't have a lot of time to prepare. And sometimes I just want a fish stick. OK this is not really a fish stick but breaded cod. This dinner is courtesy of Trader Joe's. The cornbread was from their mix. I really ought to get a good cornbread recipe and quit buying a mix. It isn't like it is hard to make.

This is part of Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard hosted by Robin at The Gardener of Eden.

Odds and Ends

The weather has been very drippy and cloudy, but I did find a nice time between rains to get the second half of the bean trellis up. I did get a few drops, but nothing soaking. I elected to leave the radishes in place and erect the trellis over them. I did have to take one out as the post was going in at that spot. I prepared 3/5 of the bed, but the other section under the radishes will have to wait until they are pulled.

I tried to take a photo, but you never have your camera out when you need it. I might not have too much of a problem with squirrels this year. They seemed to be less prevalent than last year. Today I found out why. The mockingbird chases them out of the yard. The Squirrel was over by my strawberries (but not in them) and the mockingbird dived bombed him and made a really loud screeching sound that didn't sound like a bird at all. The squirrel was chased all the way down the fence until it disappeared into the maple tree. I'm really liking this mockingbird. I usually get the sparrow hoard often in my garden in the spring. They will rip at anything, but especially the lettuce and the peas. I didn't even cover my peas this year and I have no damage. So a lot of nice things. I'm sure the worms and slugs will be worse as I'd guess the other birds eat these too.

Later in the morning I went out to do just a touch of weeding in the break between drizzles. I noticed that my baby Asian greens bed had a lot of bolting plants. All of the Fun Jen and the earlier planted white stem bok choy. The early planted tatsoi was way too crowded. So I went and fixed the problem. Now I just have the Shanghai bok choy and the happier tatsoi in this side.

The other side was planted later and seems to be growing well. Oh I had to rip the choy sum out of the other side as it really bolted prematurely in the earlier heat. The stems were too tough. Maybe the choy sum in this section will be better. It was planted after the worst of the heat was over. And has grown well in the last two wetter and cooler weeks.

What I've been picking is more than me and my townhouse mates could eat. I'm really hoping to find someone in the neighborhood to take the extras. I hate throwing good food on the compost pile. But there is always an over abundance at certain times. It just happens. So I sent an email out and hopefully I'll get some responses to my excess produce. Either that or the poor tatsoi is fated to meet with the grass clippings in the compost.

And last but not least, the tomatoes were potted up. I should have done this days ago, but I just didn't. But now they are happier. When it gets sunny I'll bring them outside more often. They were out on Monday soaking up the sun as was the basil right next to them. I have to say. It is weird not having trays and trays of tomatoes and peppers indoors at this time of the year. I'm so used to them. But I potted up just three plants. One Cherokee Purple for my garden. One Market Miracle for a friend. And an extra just in case one of them dies.

Getting Ready For Warmer Weather

I ordered a pile of mulch and thought I had gotten out of doing any of it. But it turns out that I ordered a bit too much. We were only going to mulch the front landscape beds, but with the extra I mulched the asparagus and the back raspberry bed. We have two more small beds in the back that I've told my townhouse mates to mulch. Basically I'm in charge of all the landscaping, but I'm allowed to boss everyone around and tell them what to do. For a lot of things it is just easier to do myself since I mostly know what needs doing, but certain chores I farm out to the rest of the crew.

But I guess it is good that my asparagus is mulched just in case the weather is dry. I wasn't going to. I was going to let it go this year and just keep it weeded. Next year I'm thinking of over seeding it with white clover provided all the plants make it. If not I'll do one more round of asparagus planting to fill in any gaps and wait one more year.

The weather is destined to warm up eventually. Yesterday we had a nice taste of it. We got to 71F(21C) and it was a glorious day. Today we are back into wet and cooler weather. But the trend really seems to be for a nice slow warm up. Which means it is time to starting thinking about the warm weather crops. I already have the first of the corn planted. But corn can handle some cool weather. Beans, which are the next to be planted, won't germinate until the soil hits 60F(15C). Yesterday with the sun the soil hit 70F, but with the rain coming in I'm thinking it will still stay mostly around 60F. But that is high enough. So I got the first of the trellises made. On the next dry day (maybe Thursday afternoon or Friday), I'll make the second. Then I can get them seeded. My radishes are a bit in the way. I planted them at the end of the bean bed. But the French Breakfast can mostly all be picked. It is just a little that I seeded with white icicle. It hasn't gotten big roots yet. Maybe I'll just over seed that small areas with the beans and pick the radishes when they get ready. The beans will take a while to germinate anyway.

Harvest Monday, May 7, 2012

At the end of the first week of May last year my post was similar. The weather might have been particularly warm earlier, but my planting schedule for the most part didn't change. Which means my harvests ramped up at close to the same time. Just past the beginning of May my harvest cycle changes. This is when the spring planted vegetables become ready to start picking. My harvests change from me searching for things from the garden to eat, to the garden needing to be picked and me trying to eat it all. I did have a little of that in the over wintered vegetables, but this is the start of the rush of the spring vegetables, which I'm hoping will continue throughout June. My style of planting is changing just a bit this year and I really hope I don't create a gap in production. I don't think I will, but we will see.

Choy sum and bok choy starting to bolt.

Romaine lettuce and Fun Jen that needed thinning

Last picking of the over wintered spinach

I was so excited about the first radishes that they never got weighed so aren't in the tally.

Komatsuna, lettuce, and radishes

First picking of the spring spinach

• Greens 10.98 lbs
• Radish 0.25 lbs
• Weekly total 11.23 lbs
• Yearly total 51.51 lbs
• Tally -$491.51

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Overview Tour of the Garden

I used to do overhead shots of the garden on a regular basis but not any more. At the new garden I don't think the shots are as nice. I can do better if I take the screens off of the guest room windows, but I've found that I can't get them back on again. My husband struggles with them too. So I just use the hall window and leave the screen off year round. We never open that window anyway. But even if they aren't as nice they do give you a good feeling for how the garden is set up and what is happening over time.

There are eight 4'x16' beds in the garden along with a few others. Here are bed 8 through bed 4. Bed 8 is the one closest to the shed. It is the allium bed with garlic toward the path and onions toward my neighbor's driveway. Bed 7 contains my radishes that I've started harvesting. The bed will eventually be the bean bed, but not until it warms up a bit. Bed 6 is one of the squash and corn beds. The 4'x8' section closest to the path had corn planted in it yesterday. Bed 5 is under the row covers. It contains the brassicas and the chard. The front 4'x8' section is the brassica bed I showed you earlier in the week. Once the spring brassicas are harvested, I'll plant some fall carrots. The 4'x8' section closest to the fence contains broccoli and chard and will stay there for the whole year. Bed 4 contains a whole host of things. My peas, carrots, lettuce, bunching onions, marjoram, celery, parsley and beets are already in, but there is still a section reserved for cumin. I keep trying to grow cumin here and haven't succeeded in getting a stand growing yet. Maybe this year.

These are beds 3-1 (left to right). The front section of Bed 3 has my fava beans. You can see a strip in the front that is empty. It will eventually contain my basil. When the fava beans are finished, I'll put in some fall brassicas. The back section has last years bunching onions that are going to seed and my mustards. I'm trying to grow yellow and brown mustard seed. I've given them a lot of space, but not the whole bed. At the end I'll have my one and only solanum, a Cherokee Purple tomato and an epazote plant. Neither of which are planted yet. I'm not sure what I'll plant after the mustards are out. I'm sure I'll think of something. Bed 2 hasn't been planted yet. It will be my melon, cucumber, and zucchini bed. Right now the cilantro has taken over. I need to mow it down before it goes to seed. I don't want a mass of cilantro seed here again. Bed 1 is the spinach bed. The overwintered spinach is gone, but the spring spinach is doing well under the row cover. In June this bed will be planted in squash and corn, but it will have the later sowing of the corn. Right now the schedule reads June 4th and June 21st sowing. I might change that up or I may not.

The strip along my white fence is a flower and herb bed. My bleeding heart is in bloom, next to it I transplanted a bit of lemon balm last week. Then there are the achillea, chamomile, tarragon (which is struggling) and the anise hyssop. Along the back of the chamomile I have sown some zinnias and there are a couple of cosmos in there too. In the summer it will be one wall of flowers. I'll have to remember to cut back the anise hyssop before it sets seed though. I found out it self seeds readily and I've been pulling out seedings all spring. I don't want to do that again next year. I'll do the same for the lemon balm if I can catch when it is in bloom. The chamomile tends to be an aggressive self seeder here too, but since I need it to reseed, I'll just put up with the weeding chore.

This is part of the strip along the wall. On the left you can see the cilantro going to seed. If you look hard, closer to the wall is a line of plants that have just come up. They are my sunflowers. In front of those I've transplanted self seeded sweet alyssum. I was hoping I wouldn't have to start those indoors anymore I'm hoping they just come up. It turns out they do but only in the garden beds themselves. They don't like this herb bed as much. Luckily I can transplant easily. Farther to the right are two of my rosemary plants. Then some forget-me-nots. In the pots are three of my four mints (the other is in a pot by the front door with some pansies). In front is some self seeded borage and tucked between are some jump-ups that are all purple. These seemed to come with the soil that was brought in. I let them seed last year and this year there are more. The last plant is my climbing rose. It hasn't made it over the arch of the fence yet, but I think it might get there this year. I'm hoping.

I tried to take this photo, but the camera insisted on focusing on the screen instead. You can sort of see what is down below. This is the circle garden. The garden itself has an 'L' shape. The rest was on my side yard. This is in my back yard right outside my kitchen. There are steps from my sliding door that go right down to the brick path. As you can see I look directly into the composting area. I screen most of it with some reed fencing. I have two black composters. The one on the left is the active one for kitchen waste. It has some hardware cloth on the bottom to keep any rodents out. I empty it occasionally into the pallet compost bins where I put all the garden waste and store leaves from the fall for composting all year round. The plant in front of the other black composter is a sage plant and the one I've been harvesting from all winter long. That composter I use to put finished compost into. Right not it is sadly empty. I want to make a screener to fit over the top of it so I can screen compost directly into it. I haven't done it yet.

The garden itself has my herb circle with two thymes, oregano, chives, garlic chives and rosemary. I'm fighting the dill and borage seedlings. I should never have let them go to seed here. Under the row cover are my baby Asian greens and some Fun Jen. The other bed is my kale that is going to seed. Both of these two beds will have sweet potatoes this summer. But they won't get planted for a few weeks yet. The soil has to really warm up first.

That is most of what is in the garden. Little corners have been missed which include my rhubarb and another sage and oregano plant. And it doesn't show the plants outside my white fence. But maybe I'll get to that another day.

Cinco De Mayo

My calendar says Battle of Puebla, not Cinco De Mayo, but a day by any other name would still mean I had to go work the store today. All was not lost however. The mulch for the yard was delivered yesterday and my husband spread all our sections without me. My townhouse mates still have their sections to do, but I'm free as a bird. I did get back from work at a decent time and was out in the garden at 4pm. Half an hour later my corn was planted. I think a Mexican holiday is an appropriate day to plant corn.

Yesterday it was hovering at 50F, but today we got a few little tiny peeks of sun and it warmed up considerably. So I figured I'd be safe. I aerated and fertilized the first bed.

I have four different 4'x8' sections that will be planted in corn, and I'll plant them 2-3 weeks apart. All four will have five feet of corn and three feet of squash. I'll let the squash run through the corn. I want the corn all a foot apart, or twenty plants. I put three seeds in each spot. I'll thin to the best plant. Or reseed if really necessary. The squash won't go out until it warms up more.

After tamping the seeds in, I weeded or a bit. Then noticed the pretty kale blossoms. Why have I never let kale go to seed before? It is so pretty and the bees love it.

I didn't last long weeding. I noticed the rosemary above was covered in dill and borage. I'll get to it. Really I promise. But today is a holiday, right?

Rain, Rain, Rain

I might not appreciate the cool wet weather, but the plants sure have. I've used the damp weather to transplant some seedlings that were direct seeded in the garden. My zinnias and mustards came up just fine, but there were a couple of places that were bare. So I transplanted the crowded section into the bare section. With all the wet weather I didn't even bother to water them in after.

The greens have just taken off in this weather. This is the spring planted spinach. So pretty.

I decided to pick half of the spinach. This is halfway through that process. I had two sections of spring planted lettuce. The first is the part closest to the bottom. It was seeded in February, but the soil in the farther section was still frozen, so it went in later. I figure that farther section will get all picked down next week. And I'll alternate front and back until they all start to bolt. Well it is a plan anyway. Not sure if it will actually get followed.

The spring spinach has such perfect leaves compared to the over wintered spinach that was pulled out on Tuesday. Even the stems aren't tough. I gave a pound to my townhouse mates and kept a pound in the fridge. But the other two pounds were blanched and frozen. If the good spinach harvests keep up, I won't need to freeze any chard this summer.

Back to front: Joi Choi, Kolibri Kohlrabi, Soloist Chinese Cabbage, Komatsuna

I peeked under the brassica row cover which contains mostly Asian greens. Not the cover with the smaller choys, but the one with the big ones.

I noticed the Komatsuna (on the right) was growing so fast it was pushing the poor Soloist Chinese Cabbage (on the left) to one side. So I harvested all the big leaves off of the six plants. I planted them only six inches apart in hopes it would keep them smaller. No such luck. Big gorgeous leaves. I'll have to keep an eye on them and pick them regularly so the Chinese cabbage has a chance of heading up.

Just past that section in the same 4'x8' bed. I have three Early Jersey cabbage. Well I had three. Now I have two. There is just that one leaf hanging off one plant that was taken down by what seems to be a cutworm. It was pretty obvious damage from the worm. But I dug all around the cabbage and couldn't find it. I wanted my revenge, but I was foiled. I rarely have trouble finding the sneaky thieves. At least the other two plants seem fine.

At the end of this bed are my two Michihili Chinese cabbage. Last year they got three feet wide. So this year I gave them lots of space. I put in Japanese turnips around the outside. Hopefully the turnips will be picked before the cabbages really take over. Last year when I saw these plants growing in my garden I vowed to never grow them again as they were way too big. But then I tasted them. I think they are my favorite Chinese cabbage of all time. So so good. They have just the right amount of sweetness and mustardy flavor. I hope they are as good this year.

The romaine lettuce was getting way to big. So I took out two of the heads in the middle to let the rest grow. There are some Red Sails lettuce above these and I took one head of those out too. Oh and these romaines are probably Paris Island. I'm guessing though. These were self seeded and overwintered in the garden path. Early in spring I transplanted them to the bed. They were the easiest lettuce seedlings ever.
< br/> And then there were the radishes. I had such a pretty photo of four flaming red radishes all lined up pushing out of the soil. But of course that one turned out too blurry. I even took more than one photo and none of them came out. It is pretty dark with all the clouds and drizzle. But I guess I shouldn't be complaining since the plants are growing so well. The only thing that needs it slightly warmer is the corn. The bed is right now at 50F. I think I might be planting some seed on Saturday when it clears up in the afternoon.

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard

I had started making dinner yesterday and as I was kneading the dough I remembered that it would be Thursday soon. OK fine I wasn't kneading the dough. No need to be picky about it. Get it? Knead, need? OK I'm getting punchy. It is drizzling AGAIN. And the forecast says that I have no respite until maybe Sunday. Which wouldn't be so bad if it were warm outside. But when I go out I start shivering. I spend way to much time trying to get warm by drinking tea. Anyway I digress.

Since it is Thursday I'll show off dinner last night. Or at least the parts of dinner that contain things from the garden. The bread is a rosemary olive oil bread whose recipe resides on Allrecipes. Then I look at the recipe and think, "Well sort of." The one I make is slightly different, but mostly just double in size. My Kitchenaid mixer really likes about 4 cups of flour in the bread. And I really don't feel a great need to add sugar to a savory bread. I don't usually need to proof the yeast which is the only reason I could see to use sugar here. And I have to add whole wheat flour to the dough to make it a bit more healthy. And I don't use a bread machine.

• 2 c warm water
• T yeast
• 3/8 c olive oil
• T salt
• 1/4 t oregano
• 1/4 t basil
• 1/4 t thyme
• 2 T rosemary
• 1/2 t freshly ground black pepper
• 2 1/2 c bread flour
• 2 c whole wheat flour

As you might expect this was all about the spices. They were from last year's garden. The bread was served Italian style, with a side of olive oil and black pepper. Yummy.

Then I thought about the beautiful radishes that I picked earlier in the day. They were just so lovely little red jewels. You will have to wait for Monday for their photo.

But you can see a preview of them in their salad. They are paired with some freshly picked Fun Jen (an Asian green that is perfect for salads) and romaine lettuce. It was topped with a homemade honey mustard dressing.

As you have probably all guessed, this is part of Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard hosted by Robin at the Gardener of Eden.

Cold

I'm very happy that we are getting rain again like we should be. It has been so dry. Yesterday we got about 2/3". So the soil is happy again as are the plants. I'm less happy about the temperature. Earlier in the year I complained about the exceedingly hot weather. Now I'm shivering as I drink my hot tea. Yesterday it barely hit 50F (10C). Today it will only be a little bit better.

Now I don't mind a cold spell or two. But my schedule says that May 1st is the time to plant my first of four waves of corn.

But the soil temperature is saying something different. Corn likes to germinate in soil temperatures over 60F (15C), but it will germinate in soil temperatures 50F(10C) or higher. The soil is 48F. A bit too low. If I planted right now I wouldn't speed up the corn sprouting and the seed might rot in the ground. I'll have to wait until it warms up a touch. I might have to wait a week or two. Or this weekend it might be warm enough. If we would get some sun, the soil would warm up quickly, but we have a lot of clouds and drizzly weather in the forecast.

Did you notice my "soil" thermometer? I used to use it to make lattes. My husband bought me a latte maker years ago. I loved it until I started gaining weight. It pretended to be my friend, but in reality it was evil. Now the thermometer has been repurposed for the garden.

A Bad Gardener

I finally finished ripping out the last half of the overwintered spinach. The first half sat in the fridge for most of the weekend. I finally got to blanching and freezing it. I shouldn't wait that long, but I just didn't feel like it. This last half got blanched and frozen right after harvest. Much better.

But this post is really about my strawberries. Can you see them hiding behind the Johnny-Jump-Ups? I'm such a bad gardener. I should have ripped out or transplanted these ages ago. Instead they have almost killed the plants that were next to them. But they look so happy and cheerful that I couldn't bear to rip them out. But if some plant is going to die, I shouldn't let it be my strawberries.

But not all is lost. The swath of Jump-Ups is only in front of about a third of the strawberries. There are plenty of strawberries starting to get big. In about a week the squirrels will find the berries and then I won't get them. I want to prevent that. So I put in hoops as you can see in the Jump-Up photo. I was going to put some bird netting over it, but then the rain started. I guess the protection will have to wait. I'm being such a wimp of a gardener. A real gardener wouldn't let a little rain chase her away.

I hope the squirrels don't get precocious and start eating all the berries early. In the past they would wait until the largest of the berries is a little more red. They like the ripe ones better but will start eating any of them with the faintest blush once they get a taste for them.