Back to Work

Well it has been a while since I've last blogged, due to some travel and not so great weather.  Now it is back to work.  Let me get you up to speed on where I'm at with the garden to date.

Back on April 17th I've but up a basic garden net to keep my neighbors 2 cats out of my garden bed.  Fluffy & Crooked Tail,  or whatever the names of those cats may be are no friends of mine.  Actually they infuriate me as they think my garden beds are large kitty litters.  I've been told that if I catch them in the act of doing their business I should hit them with a super soaker.  Unfortunately I've never been in the right position to hit then.  So in the interim I've wrapped my raised beds with basic netting.

So far so good.  Since putting up the netting, neither cat has been bold enough to exploit the minor holes I have in my netting.  It is getting the job done.

April 22nd:  My wife and daughter planted salad seeds in our primary garden bed.  The other side garden bed is generating salad from last year.  Here is what they planted.

Italian Swiss Chard.  This image is with the green stem but we planted and prefer the chard with the green stem.
This was planted in the corner of our garden bed that faces due west.  The chad does very well in the area and yields great quantities into November.





The next thing that they planted was arugula.  This two if facing due west and is also very prolific in our garden.  One interesting to note is that this Arugula is already coming up.  At some point I will need to separate out and provide better spacing for it.  Because the seeds are so small, it is easy for multiple seeds to fall into one hole and thus the overcrowding. 




The next thing that they planted was Italian Chicoria, (Chicory).  These seeds were compliments of my mother-in-law who brought them down from Toronto for us.  The Italian Chicoria is more easy to come by there and she provided us with a healthy pack of seeds.

If you like salads, this is a great addition to mix in with other greens.  It is very bitter and provides that added depth in flavor to your everyday salads.

We were fortunate enough to have some of our Chicoria come back from last year, and I had it tonight for dinner in my salad.  The bitterness was not that bad, but the leaves were old and had the texture of fur.  It was delicious!

Lastly, my daughter and wife planted Romano Bush beans.  These are great seeds to give to your children to plant.  They are large and grow rapidly.  Children love watching their beans grow and them picking them straight and eating them. 






May 5th.  Moved the lawn for the first time this season.  After a trip up to Toronto the week prior to this one, when I returned my grass was above my ankles!  So I usually cut my grass in the mulch mode except for the first two cuttings and the last two at the end of the season.  This gets the first cut off the ground and helps promote new growth.  Tomorrow, May 16th, I'll cut it again.

Today, May 15th.  Today I picked up my Heirloom Tomatoes and will plant them tomorrow.  I'll provide and update on the status at the end of the day. 

Another item on the list for tomorrow is transplanting my fig trees.  Fig Trees you say?  Yes.  Fig Trees.  I will tell you more about them in a future blog