Has it really been over a month since I blogged? Geez. All's I can say is, I got invaded by family. My mother's family had a reunion at our place and mom just left for home on Monday. I've been double timing it the past two days in the vegetable garden to get everything done.

Some may recall my incessant whining in the past (though I hope you do not) about how it was too hard for me to get the garden going. Well, this year is apparently my year.

I've forgone the old double dig method, or at least have modified it/mated it with the deep mulch method and what I have now is their bastard love-child...dunno what to call it, but the result are sexy, slightly raised 4 foot wide beds.

While my mother was here we finished prepping the first garden bed and I planted the onions, spinach, and sowed the seeds of the lettuces, cabbage, and bunching onions. I also planted some hyacinth bean vines in the corner of the yard and forked up a third, narrow bed by the garden fence for the bush beans. And because you can never have too many plants, we went to my neighborhood nurseries and found some herb plants on clearance. I found a really cool rugosa and a cranberry plant, too. And mom bought me some sweet little hyacinths. At the second nursery mom bought me some fushia plants, I now have three to put in the ground and one to put in a hanging pot, yay! Love fuchias.

I spend quite a bit of time figuring out what I was going to put in each bed. Companion planting, plant spacing, etc. Have worked out a plan that will not put any plants that dislike each other in the same bed, I hope. Every year I have to move around where the tomatoes and the beans go, too, which keeps things interesting.

Yesterday I:
*removed the grass clods from the second garden bed (long story, basically, I'm an idiot)
*amended the second and third beds with the organic soil building compost that you can get round these parts in bulk.
*dug up the dandelions in the garden and saved the roots for medicinal purposes
*cut off all the side branches of the invasive bamboo that we've been diggin up and set the stalks aside to dry out to make cucumber trellises.
*dug up the raspberry bushes growing around the roses in the garden.

Three or four weeks ago, I can't really remember, DD and I planted vegetable and herb seeds in trays and the veggies are raring to go and most got planted today. The herbs are still thinking about it. I also picked up some tomato plants and green pepper plants and a fuschia at the local growers market. I didn't get a chance to plant the tomato seeds you sent me, Sparrow, will they keep till next year? :bowing head in shame:

Today I:
*turned the new compost pile
*stuck the hyacinths mom bought me and the one she dug up in the garden in the ground
*DD and I planted in the second garden bed:
--10 tomato plants (two brandywine, two roma VF, and six Burgerville* tomato plants)
--4 green pepper plants (two aneheim hot peppers, one emerald giant sweet pepper and one Romanian heirloom sweet pepper
--9 bush peas (four Oregon Sugar Pod II, five Mr. Big)
--8 cucumbers (three egyptian cucumbers, five Burgerville* cucumbers)
--sowed the radish and carrot seeds (1pkg Champion radish, 2pkgs Red Core Chantenay carrots)
--4 pumpkin plants (Conneticut Field)

I watered the beds a little bit to give the sown seeds something to work with. We've had two days in a row of pure sunshine and the top 1/4 inch of soil is dry.

Now I'm done for the day.

I still have to get in the bush beans and set up the cucumber trellises and the tomato cages. Also need to put the herbs in the herb bed, then find a home for the cranberry, plant the rugosa and the fushias, then I'll almost be caught up.

Except Earth Day is this Saturday and my goal is to find the Friends of Trees give away booth and hopefully get my hands on some elderberry bushes, some fig and apricot trees, a persimmon tree, and hazelnut trees. Depends on what they have. If they don't have those, I'll have to break down and go to a nursery and buy them.

Anyway, no more whining about how I can't do what I want to in the garden. Homeopathy, physical therapy, proper meds and such have given me back my body again, at least to the degree that I can garden again without crippling myself. I still need to be very careful to not overdo with my elbow tendons and things, but even though I'm still a month behind the ideal planting schedule, I'm light years ahead of where I was last year this time.

In about a week, I think I'll be done putting stuff in the ground.

*The Burgerville restaurant chain, native to the NW, gave away seed packets in their children's meals last spring. Dunno what kind of tomatoes or cucumbers they are, so we're calling them the Burgerville variety.

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