I finally got
my seeds started a couple of weeks ago, which is crazy late, but I just couldn't
get excited about planting stuff when there was still snow on the ground. Winter
came late and stayed late, in stark contrast to last year’s insane 87 degree
days in March. Here we are, mid-April, and we've only had a small handful of
nice days. Lots of rain, though, which considering the drought we had was very
welcome. For awhile. Now it’s mostly just boring.
So, the
rhubarb is coming up, but there’s no sign of the asparagus yet. I ate my first
thing out of the garden today – chives! On my egg salad bagel for lunch. Yum. I
direct seeded radishes, beets, carrots, peas, bok choi, lettuce, spinach, and
broccoli raab. Mostly the radishes seem to be sprouting. Inside I started all
the usual stuff, plus kale. I started tons and tons of cukes, including lemon
cukes. I want enough to give a lot away, esp. after last year’s non-cuke
production. I think after school today I’ll
finally buy my seed potatoes. I have the pots ready to go, but last time I went to Sneed's
they weren't in yet. See: late snow mentioned earlier.
I put garlic
in last fall, and that’s looking pretty good. Parsley continues to self-seed. Egyptian
walking onions are also growing nicely.
I have so
many seeds. I was in charge of getting them for the school garden, and I did not disappoint. I went
to a local seed swap, and the woman in charge was nice enough to give me the
leftovers. She had gotten 50 packets from High Mowing Seeds, so I applied for the same type
of donation ($5 for 25 packets of seeds packed for 2012). They can’t take
requests, though, so some of the seeds weren't what we needed. So I picked up
the rest at Sneed's.
Speaking of
the school garden, I was in charge of getting the build team staffed to build
the veggie garden. The principal and 11 parents showed up, which was fantastic.
Didn't take too long to build 6 raised beds (from kits), 2 benches, and a
storage shed. Luckily, since we've been all DIY for years I knew who to ask to
help. I wanted only people who knew how to work a screwdriver. The dirt and
mulch will be delivered in a few weeks. We plan to have the students move most
of that around. That’s the low-skill end of the job, so that should be fine.
Last week I invited
myself to help make newspaper seedling pots with the school's Garden Club (4th grade, including Boo). We managed to
churn out 150 in an hour, which is pretty good if you consider that they were
very interested in getting the best possible photo to be showing on the outside
of their pots. Kids are not very hard workers these days. Blame the unions.
