Garden's growing

Bareroot Heirloom Raspberry planted 2 weeks ago.

The garden is coming along nicely. I'm trying not to think too hard about being nearly 4 weeks behind on planting. It's starting to get H.O.T. down here in the South and with that comes a host of wonderfully destructive pests. Already the flies are buzzing and I'm fairly certain a couple mosquitoes have flown by.

A butterfly visiting the onions.

The weeds are poking through everywhere. I need to get down some mulch to help deter them and for water retention, the summers gonna be a scorcher. It always is. There are huge patches of land that had been tilled (and tilled and tilled) that are just covered in a thick green blanket of Bahaia (have I mentioned I hate this grass?) that now needs to be rototilled yet again. I could do it by hand but I will probably kill myself and someone has to be around to watch the kids, so that's out.

First teeny tomato.

There is still a lot of ground to get planted. After more than 2 weeks the quinoa, amaranth and strawberry popcorn haven't made a single sprout in the Big Field. I'm not holding out much hope for them. Which means if we want to have any of those I need to replant them (translate- buy more seeds) in the Garden. And for some reason everything that sprouts in the cold frames has been dying. One day they're out there and the next poof! gone.

Pole beans



Lack of seed sprouts means more money spent on seedlings. The whole debacle of loosing every seed we owned and having to replace them is now being lost to whatever reason. The leeks never came up, 40 basil sprouts died, most of the cukes are going but very, very slowly. While I've been getting good deals on the sprouts (6 pack for $3 usually, some of the tomatoes have been over 12" tall) it's still more money out the door. I'm just running too far into the season to start things from seeds again.

Rows of potatoes and peanuts.

There are still some good things going on. The 100' of potatoes I planted from a $2 batch of locally produced red potatoes four weeks ago have just about all sprouted with some exceptions. The 100' of peanuts is doing equally well. I put approximately 10lbs of potatoes in the ground. If I can get 25lbs back I'll mark that a success. Now I will start mulching and building up the hills around them.

New sweet corn starts.



I'm still learning, now into my third year. I haven't ever attempted anything to this scale. My garden last year had 3 tomato plants, this year I already have close to 60. It's an investment all around. One that I hope will start repaying us very soon (my budget can't take much more "investing"). I'll be pleased to get enough food to can and eat multiple meals a week fresh. If I can sell a little on the side to put back the money out, I'll be even happier.

Double tomato flower.

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.