After a week of the wettest, coldest spring weather I've seen in a long time the sun is finally shining and the air is warm. So it seems like a fine time for a garden update.
We've been eating mesclun salad since Easter Sunday and are enjoying the fresh greens very much. The first radishes came up about a week ago-- they are spicy, tender, and tasty. Just a few days ago we ate the first of our leafy red-green lettuce. Carrots have their green tops up, the peas are blooming white flowers, and the chard, which I nearly gave up on several times, should be ready for its first harvest soon.
Thanks to a neighbor with some extra chicken wire I have a nice new fence and will soon have a freshly tilled plot to put my tomato and pepper plants in. At this moment they are going through the hardening off process near the back door. I think the squash, cucumbers, and green beans will go in the ground this weekend. I have a basil plant to put out there on an experimental basis as well (the rest I'll keep inside on the windowsill, which is now nearly empty of plants).
I've been using fish fertilizer every now and then to feed the plants, crushed eggshells to ward off slugs, cow manure compost as organic matter as I've yet to master the art of the compost pile. It stays fairly weeded and adequately watered, so hopefully the plants will respond in kind.
Something happened to us when we ate those first few salads. I've been baking our bread for the last month or so, too, and I think we are liking the prospect of being more self reliant in the years to come. I'm putting myself on a ten year plan-- ten years to learn to garden properly, for one, but also to be more of a producer and less of a consumer.
