Garden Report

The lettuces planted on April 5 took three weeks to germinate and come up.  They are now a whoppin' 1/4" tall.  This past Saturday I planted a mix of heirloom lettuces; some are 50-day lettuce and some 60 and some 75.   If I thin them properly, that should give me a good month's worth of lettuce from the one planting.  Knowing me, I'm afraid I'll thin so that only one variety will remain growing.

I had intended to again plant potatoes in a pile of dead leaves in the compost bed.  But as I pulled large old weeds out of the compost pile, I was amazed at the awesome beauty of that dirt.  Oh, it was black.  And soft and fine and crumbly.  Not clay-like at all.  I'm not wasting that luscious dirt on potatoes.  I'm putting something more precious in that raised bed which spent its last few summers as the compost pile.  I don't know yet what's going to live there this summer.  Probably a couple of tomatoes and some herbs and some more lettuces.

Potatoes should be planted in the waning moon.  I'd been sick during most of April's waning moon.  New moon was fast approaching, and several days of rain was due.  If I didn't get those potatoes in the ground before bedtime last Saturday, there'd be another 2-3 week delay.  So I dug trenches and hauled dead leaves to fill those trenches.  My potatoes are now in the dirt.  And they're being nicely and gently watered every day from the rain.  Of course, it's refrigerator temperature outside.  So I'm not sure how the seeds will fare.  But I've done what I can do.

The tulips have tight, small, very-green buds.  The lilacs have tiny green leaves on them, but no sign of buds.  The apples, crab apples, and cherry trees show no signs of leaves yet.  Usually by the end of April, the lilacs and the crab apples have already bloomed and are finishing their spring floweriness.  Not this year.

Honestly, with the weather, I'm not planning on summer crops.  No beans, no corn, no melons.  I figure I'll grow a few batches of spring veggies.  Except tomatoes.  Gotta at least try on the tomatoes!