Harvesting

So far we have had a lot of lettuce. It keeps growing and growing and growing. And with all of the watering that God keeps doing, it is growing taller, even though it is leaf lettuce...check it out:
You can also see the shallots in the background up against the back board. I cannot wait to see them when they come up. Makes me think that I should plant some garlic. Just today I was watching Gardening by the Yard and Paul James suggested interplanting other crops with the lettuce since it will die out by the time we get to 90 degrees.

I have also had a few strawberries that I have managed to harvest before the bunnies started eating them:


They are the most delicious strawberries that I have ever had! This tops Driscoll's strawberries on any day of the week!

Fencing it In

After the recent frost and animal activity took hold of all 5 of my tomato plants, we decided to fence in 2 of my 3 gardens, each of which has tomato plants in it. We purchased 4 foot metal posts from Lowe's and staked at the corners and in the middle of the 8 foot sides.


We then added 2 foot tall chicken wire around the entire bed.


I planted a second basil plant because there is never enough bail for the winter pesto. Now I just need to research how best to freeze pesto.



You can also see, in the top left of the photo, that a potato plant is growing. We originally filled this bed with sphagnum peat moss as well as part of the soil from last year's garden...I guess we missed a potato!

So, the whole purpose of all this fencing was to provide a safe growing environment for our tomatoes. This time I planted Goliath Bush, 2 Bush Early Girls and 2 Celebrity plants. I used the medium sized plants vs. the smaller plants. I also noticed in far north garden that the two tomato plants that were topped by some animal are starting to sprout new foliage.

The Calm Before the Storm

Today we got out in the garden to check out the gardens before the Easter storms. The strawberries are looking amazing! The first red strawberry was in the dirt and was starting to rot. So, we mulched them to hopefully alleviate the rotting. We have so many good buds, I don't want to lose them.


We also checked on our Watermelon which we planted on 3/31 and the first seedling is popping through:


We lost all of our basil seedlings with the cold snap earlier in the week, so I also planted a basil transplant from the nursery. I also plan to put down more basil seeds, but I want to wait until after tomorrow's storms so that they do not wash away.

Now, the only problem we still have to contend with is that something ate the leaves off of 2 of our tomato plants before the frost and the frost (even with frost cloth over the plants) took the tops off the rest. I took the advice of Leslie from North Haven Gardens and have fed them with liquid seaweed and will wait for one more week before going out to buy more plants.


We are also continuing to add dirt to the potatoes so that we can have an even greater crop. I was worried after the frost because I had a lot of black leaves that seemed "burnt". But, they seem to be continuing to thrive.

We will assess the damage of the Easter storm tomorrow afternoon. I hope that we have no hail.

Happy Easter everyone!