I’ve been more than tempted over the last few weeks to complain about the cold, wet spring. The blackberries reminded me today that while certainly wet, this is not a cold spring by 20th century standards. Even with the rain, I’m not planting anything in the garden any later than I should have in 1995. There was really no point in planting even the earliest crops before May 1. They would sit in the ground for weeks before sprouting anyway. You can guess how I know. We’ve just been spoiled by the extremely warm weather of the oughts, culminating in last year’s record setting season.
Anyway, one rhubarb plant survived The Bed Which Kills Even Rhubarb this year. I top dressed the bed with an inch of compost and planted the first crop of beans in it. (Yellow beans to the right of the rhubarb, purple to the left of the horseradish, four plants which are thriving, and pole beans all along the back fence, which will most likely turn into chicken food, but I guess the chickens need to eat, too.)
All the cool weather transplants are in, as well as the summer carrots and parsnips. The storage/overwinter parsnips can wait till the 4th of July, and the storage carrots till August 1. I’m sneaking in the extra onion plants wherever there’s a bit of room. They’re a storage variety, and in the unlikely event that we have more than we need, we can take them to a winter farmer’s market and turn them into cash.
The tomato and pepper plants are woefully behind. They’re on the balcony, hoping for a few warm days before I put them out.
Half the cukes are in, the rest will go in tomorrow. They’re actually short season, and could wait, but the pickle situation is critical. If I can find room, I’ll plant more later. The next item on the time critical list is okra for my Texan bride. The ones Prince didn’t stomp did well for us last year. We’ll see how it does in a more normal year.
We’re eating asparagus for the first time this year. It’s wonderful. We’re falling slightly behind the production, but not a lot. If we actually tire of it, Lisa wants to pickle some.
