Garden

I finally got my garden planted. I got it rototilled a week ago but with all that is going on I didn't get to planting my garden until Friday. I even skipped a day of hiking in order to get my garden planted. I had to else my garden still wouldn't be planted. A cold front came through Friday night and Saturday was cold and wet.

This year was one of the later times I planted my garden. Last year was about as late but I had an excuse as I didn't return home from North Dakota until Memorial Day week. My excuse this year? Umm... a cold and late Spring. I didn't get to borrow the rototiller until late. I wanted a large block of time to work on my garden without interruption. And I had company over Memorial Day weekend.

Other than fixing a flat bicycle tire, the only thing I did Friday was work on my garden. I didn't even check my gopher traps. And my garden work took most of the day as I didn't finish until about 10 pm.

Once I got everything planted I watered what I had planted. I watered slowly so as not to disturb and move the seeds. It took hours to water everything. A strong cold front from Canada arrived in the evening and the winds picked up and blew strong. The temperature dropped and I felt like it was Fall. Bring back global warming!

The metal walls from my neighbor's burnt shop was scraping and screeching in the wind. I was expecting some piece of metal to break free and go flying in the wind.

It was dark when I finished watering. Even though rain was in the forecast I wanted to water what I had planted. The ground is so dry the dirt was blowing around and I wanted to prevent what I had planted from blowing away.

After a quick look Saturday morning the only damage I noticed was one broccoli plant had been torn away. I did get the old tires I use around my tomato plants to retain warmth at night and placed them over the tomato plants. A secondary effect of the tires is to protect the young plants from the wind.

We had a quarter inch of rain overnight which was desperately needed. Prior to the rain the ground and grass felt like it was mid-July. This is not good when it is early June. Still we need much more rain as I hardly got my shoes muddy when walking in the garden dirt to place the tires.

I planted:

• radishes (red and white)
• lettuce
• onions and green onions
• beets
• peas
• string green beans
• carrots
• parsnip
  
• corn
• broccoli
  
• cabbage
• tomatoes
  
• potatoes
• pepper (green bell and jalapeno)
• sunflowers
• watermelon
• muskmelon
• cucumber
• zucchini squash