Time In The Garden

Believe it or not, there was enough time between showers yesterday to get outside and work in the garden. 

Honestly.  It must be a miracle. 

It has rained every bloomin' day since Sunday so the peeks of sunshine yesterday were nothing short of miraculous.  In those glorious 4-6 hours, Mara and I worked our fingers to the bone trying to get plants in, seeds sown, soil fluffed and a nifty, round trellis thingy (that looks a bit like a carousel) assembled.

In Mara's garden, we thinned out the volunteer sunflower seedlings and planted broccoli.  Then we took a ginormous clay bowl and planted carrots.  She did the planting and watering and proudly showed her Papaw when he came by to pick up a rain barrel.  We still have some spinach to sow, but otherwise, her garden is coming along nicely.

In Isaac's garden,  we thinned out sunflower seedlings and got the bed ready for yellow pear tomatoes, snow peas and maybe a couple eggplants.

In Mama's garden, we re-sowed some carrots that didn't germinate very well, filled a small raised bed with lovely black soil and planted cabbage and brussel sprouts.  Then, we worked that nifty trellis thingy into a row between peppers and planted cucumbers on one side and Italian yardlong beans on the other.  I'm hoping it stands up to the fierce winds we get out here on the Knobs; just in case, I'm going to have the Mr. stake it down.

Our plans for today, a day in which we're supposed to have sun all day long (gasp, I know) is to finish our covered raised bed.  We're using the U-shaped legs from the defunct trampoline to make the framework and the jumping surface to make a shade-cloth to keep our greens cool.  When winter rolls around, we're going to replace the shade-cloth with either a plastic sheet or corrugated plastic to make a lovely hoop house.  After the framework is done, we fill and plant spinach and kale.

Also on the agenda is planting the remaining potatoes using the straw bed method.  I've never tried growing potatoes in straw before, but I've heard good things, so this will be our year to experiment.  I have a bed of potatoes planted using the traditional dirt; they'll be my control taters :)  I'm curious which bed, the straw or the dirt, will produce the most?  If there's room, I may try to squeeze a few more onions into the gaps in the garden as we can never have too many onions.

Saturday is supposed to be another lovely, sunny, warm day and I hope to plant the tomatoes and eggplants, and maybe get them mulched really thickly with some old straw.  And of course, after all this rain, the grass needs cut desperately.  Desperately.  I'm thinking a bushog might do a better job than a lawnmower at this point. We'll see how it goes and how much we really accomplish in the next 48 hours.