RaNdOm ThOuGhTs from the Garden

[note - I started this post last week and never got around to publishing it]

On Wednesday, we had our first strawberry beginning to blush. On Thursday, we had ants crawling all over the sad remains of that same strawberry. Methinks the neighborhood squirrel has struck again.

I had to put our cucumber plants out before I had a chance to harden them off. Not sure if any of them are going to make it because the hot sun really got to them yesterday. [UPDATE: those nasty little roly polies (pill bugs, sow bugs, etc.) chewed the stems of all of my cukes. This morning I planted some extra seeds directly into the raised bed. We'll see what happens.]

I think my chickens are part duck. They love to play in the rain. Seriously.

I built another raised bed. This one is for our rhubarb patch. I planted rhubarb directly into the ground when we first moved in almost seven years ago and it has never really taken off. The soil quality is to blame so I am going to see how they do in a permanent raised bed.

Speaking of raised beds – I put a fresh coat of stain on the outside of all of our raised beds and put down fresh cedar mulch. Our garden area looks great and I can’t wait to finish planting.

While weeding the onions I discovered some volunteer tomato plants where we had our Mr. Stripey and Box Car Willie tomatoes last year. I thinned out the smaller ones and I think I’ll transfer them to their own raised bed this week. My gardening theory is that you can never have too many fresh tomatoes!

I finished planting the garden yesterday. Put in pole beans, bush beans (they came free with my seed order and I had a spare raised bed), transplanted volunteer tomatoes, and added some color with marigold flowers. Our raspberry patch looks great this year – it’s absolutely thick with canes.

Now, if I could just keep the raccoons out of the strawberries and stop them from digging in the raised beds I would be just fine. Time to put out the bird netting on the berries.

Related posts:

1. It’s fall and I’m still harvesting veggies and fruit from the garden
2. Some lazy days in the garden
3. My 2009 garden review
4. Received some happy mail for the garden today
5. Square Foot Gardening Book

Tagged as: Backyard Chickens, bush beans, Gardening, pole beans, raised beds, raspberries, rhubarb, strawberries