May 23: Hot then cold temps, but so much growing!!

The past 2 weeks have included a number of 80 or even 90 degree days, but also some really chilly weather, including a low predicted tonight of 40 degrees.  I have all the warm weather plants in, so covered the basil tonight and a few of the tomatoes and peppers.   Here's what the basil looks like tonight, covered with cardboard boxes!

When I worked on the herb garden last week, I found a lot of self-seeded calendula from last fall, and moved them all to one area at the front of the herb garden.  I love these yellow and organge pot marigolds that are supposed to keep bugs from other plants, and also are edible garnishes, but I didn't want them growing in among all the other herbs.:

this is a view of the garden from the northeast, showing how big and beautiful the strawberry plants are---they have lots of flowers, and just this week, I see lots of small green strawberries!   The photo also shows the foot tall garlic and the huge stand of tarragon! 

The three westmost blueberry bushes (that Breda planted)  have lots of flowers--I'm already overdue for removing some of them so that the plant can get better established before bearing so heavily.   The grapes have tiny berry clusters too!  And the apple trees had lots of blossoms, withered now, but too early to tell if we'll have apples.

The herb garden is looking really nice, with a lot of big perennial herbs plus the new ones I just planted, mostly from Ted's greenhouse, some from my own little seed flats in our own greenhouse.

Also got the tomatoes planted this week, and used tomato cages since we can't get any more willow.

Plus planted the pepper seedlings, radish seeds, nasturtium seedlings,one hill of zuchini seeds, and melon seeds (but until they get their second leaves, I can't tell which they are as the cantaloupe and watermelon seeds were the ones that dumped over in the greenhouse!  Also plants pots of mints by the stump.

And finally the slow slow potatoes are coming up.  Each day I count a few more.  I believe now there are 28 potato plants.  The onions look great, as does the lettuce.  Put in more pea seeds as they seemed to have a poor germination rate.  Red beets are up, and swiss chard is looking great.  Raspberry bushes are growing by leaps and bounds...need to be tied up!  The entire garden needs to be labeled.  I have all the neat pottery placques we made, but need to get them strung up and mounted.   And need to get wire and hoses to tie the apple trees to the stakes.  All in all, the garden looks pretty good, except for the 2 top west plots (the weedy old strawberry bed--to become the corn and cucumber bed, and the grassy asparagus plot.

May 10: Everything's growing, grapevines pruned, herbs from Ted's

It's been super hot and super cold in the past 10 days, mostly dry, but a little rain, and pretty breezy.  I've had to water several times to give the new seedlings a chance.   The onions have all sprouted up about 3 inches and are looking great.  They're in the foreground in this photo.  The taller ones in the back are the garlic!

I finally pruned back the grapevines and tied them to the fence.  The leaves are coming out fast this week.





I ordered a nylon trellis from Burpee but will need to spend a little more time with it to get it to look nice and straight on my will stick trellis.  One tragedy of the week is that ComEd sent a tree cutting service which cut down all the willow along the creek under the high lines---now we've lost our source of reindeer legs, marshmallow sticks, and garden teepees.  I suspect it will grow back---maybe 5 years?

Garrett helped me lay down a big sheet of black plastic which I bought.  I'm hoping to get woodchips dumped on it.  Last year, the grass and bindweed (ugh!) grew up through the woodchips which didn't get used right away.  I think the plastic will be good as a base for the chip pile.  Hopefully, Des Athy's Egle Scout project will result in new compost bins along the fence later this year.

Chris Hopkins, Aleida Netzel, and I spent the morning at Ted's greenhouse, picking out tomatoes and herbs for the camp scholarship fund plant sale.   Aleida and I have done this for years and years!  When we got back, it was so cold, so we (Aleida, Carol Alesia, and I)  worked in the dining room to get the plants divided into bags for those who ordered them.  Carol sang to the plants!