Planting the Summer Garden

Today and yesterday were all about gardening. I am a week late for Good Friday, but not too late to plant. Gardening by the moon is out the window for summer crops-well, it is not horrible to plant in Capricorn or Aquarius, but it is not ideal either. It is better than average, I suppose. Monday the moon goes into Pisces, which is much more favorable for planting, but the weather is not cooperating with the moon signs this year. I've had good enough results over the years to convince myself that there is something to this lunar agriculture thing, but it is not like I am superstitious about it. I believe a garden can be good and productive regardless of what moon sign it was planted, under the right conditions and care, of course.

Yesterday I tilled the entire garden, laid out the plan, marked the ground, and planted sweet corn in blocks. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the blocks on the right side of the image. The footpaths between the 5x5 blocks are marked with flags. I worked all day. Today, Skyguy and I got up early, took a few extra anti-inflammatories for sciatica and again worked in the garden all day. I went back over some areas with the tiller while he lashed together some bamboo frames for pole beans. He wanted to try various designs, so we have A-frames and we are experimenting with a new design. Poles are secured to the ground with rebar 'staples' and the sting will be tied around the ground pole and the ridge pole. While he erected the bean trellises, I erected the tomato fences and laid out the tomato cages. I also made one bean tee pee, mostly for argument's sake as that is my preferred way of growing pole beans. We planted asparagus beans, Roma II bush beans, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, and Dragon's Tongue pole beans. Later, in a month or so, I will plant some Blue Lake bush beans. I also have 3 other varieties of corn to plant over the next 6 weeks. Today, I also planted my sweet potato slips, although I might be rushing things a bit. Sweet potatoes like warmer soil, and I just found out that the forecast low for Tuesday night is 37. Woops. I'll have to protect those slips now. I spent most of the morning planting peanuts-another warm soil crop. I laid out the feed bags on either side of the wide row, and shoveled soil onto the feed bags. Then I covered the bags with partially composted waste hay and covered the seed bed with wheat straw. It is not much to look at now, but it was a lot of work moving the soil away, laying the bags out as a weed block, then putting the soil back on the bags, etc. Oh, and I should add in the trip over the the neighbor's pasture to fork the rotting pile of hay into the truck,then unloading it and forking it onto the bags, onto the potato vines in the tires, and around a squash plant. It was just one of those days where you stayed busy but at the end it becomes almost impossible to remember exactly what you did. Getting all those feed bags out of the greenhouse freed up some space, and that sparked a mini cleaning session in the greenhouse. I'll finish it up tomorrow when it is raining. It will be nice to have all that junk out of there(junk that is not really junk-stuff like hummingbird feeders that need to be in use, a lawnmower that was stored over the winter, tools that really need to be elsewhere, etc.)

Other gardening type activities we did today include plant rice (Wells) in large plastic tub of stagnant water, create a few hills for the cucumbers that I will transplant after the rains, cut a grocery bag full of Chinese mustard and prep the leaves for dinner tomorrow, harvested several heads of Michihili cabbage and a few florets of broccoli for dinner, mow the front acre of the pasture in preparation for the arrival of the Paulownia trees that are due any day now, weedeat the high grassy areas of the yard and garden and barn areas, cultivated around plants in areas too small for the tiller/cultivator, and probably more stuff that I have forgotten about. Oh yeah, and I took a few pictures this evening, just to show the 'guts', the skeleton, of the garden if you will. In a few months, it will be like a jungle, a maze, but now, everything is barren looking. I'm glad the day is over. I feel like we have passed a major milestone now.

Tomorrow it is supposed to rain so I won't be doing any planting. I still need to transplant my tomatoes, peppers, squashes and cukes to the garden. I suppose I will spend some time tomorrow figuring out how I will fit all the tomatoes inside the fence. I may need to till/cultivate near the moat fence-remove the grass and weeds, to make room for all the tomatoes and peppers. If worst comes to worst, I can use the area of the chicken moat.

I'm really thankful for Skyguy's help in the garden this year. I haven't had a garden this nice since 2000 before I contracted RA and when the kids were home to help. It is actually rather exciting to think of the possibilities. It is great to have a partner in crime.