The Veggie Garden is In

After waiting  months for the weather to allow us to get out to the gardens, May is now here and, as usual, we can barely keep up. It's still been very rainy, but we're blessed -- no floods, no tornados, no late frosts even.  Actually the moist cool May has been perfect for almost all our plants.  It's a jungle out there this month.  DH has been mowing the grass a least twice a week. Our split perennials from last fall, and our new seedling transplants are all doing well.

We quickly filled our greenhouse last month with cuttings and seedlings. We built two new raised gardens - one for pumpkins and squash, and the other for full sun flowers. DH screwed treated posts together with angle iron, then drilled holes and anchored the frames to the ground by driving in rebar.  (By the way, anyone got an opinion on how safe treated posts are for a veggie garden?  The internet gives mixed advice, and I couldn't dissuade DH.) A load of good garden soil delivered to the edge of our lawn was shoveled and hauled back to fill the new raised gardens.

This bed will hold pumpkins and squash.

This new bed is just for me -- annual flowers this year!

Then it was full steam ahead with the planting. Cold weather crops were planted in April - peas, onions, spinach, carrots, beets, and swiss chard.  We ate our first spinach salad last night - yum! Beans, parsley, zucchini and cucumbers were planted from seed last weekend. Tomato, pepper, squash and pumpkin plants were started in the greenhouse, hardened off and set into the garden also last weekend.  The tomato plants especially looked wonderful this year - big and sturdy.  (We have extras if anyone wants them.)

Beautiful tomatoes grown from seed -- hardening off.

 DH used grass clippings to mulch all his veggies.  It's a little stinky as it decomposes, but it does the job, and it's free. 

Here's some of that early spinach. Note the grass clipping mulch.

Veggie garden is planted and mulched.

Cucumbers and zucchini

Pumpkins and squash

I planted my new bed with cosmos in the back, 2 dahlias in the middle, zinnias in the middle, and ornamental cabbage in the front.  The ornamental cabbage and some of the zinnias and cosmos were started in the greenhouse.  I planted more seeds of the same directly in the bed.  Not even a full 24 hours later, I found rabbit damage on the cabbage and cosmos.  DH helped me surround the bed with fencing.  I'm hoping that in a month when everything is firmly established I'll be able to remove the fence. Darn those rabbits -- they're all over the place! 

Had to add fencing to slow down the rabbits.

Today as I sit here at the computer, the window off my right shoulder is open. I'm listening to the birds and a gentle breeze in the newly opened maple tree leaves. It's heavenly.  But it's also calling to me.  I weeded, planted and mulched, a front flower bed already this morning. I'm feeling it - my back already hurts... but soon... I'll do a bit more... it's just a beautiful day.