Mar 29---Whats happening in your garden?

It's growing. And doing great this year. Going to pick 3 rows of young turnips that are left this weekend, and get them in the freezer. Need room for more snap beans. Corn is about a foot tall now. Tomatoes are growing like weeds. My tater crop is still the best it has been in years. I am really proud of my carrots. Set out more yellow squash plants last night. Haven't had any rain in over a month now. Supposed to get some tonight. Have been running up the water bill by watering the garden and all my fruit trees.

My fruit trees are doing great this year. Got all of them fertilized and mulched. Have a ton of peaches already set. Going to have buckets of blueberries this year. My citrus trees, satsumas, oranges, and lemon; are now starting to flower out. My apple trees finally decided to bud out this morning. Going to go pick up a cherry tree for the wife tomorrow, and maybe grab another plum tree. Wish I could find my kiwi vines I am wanting around here. Grape vines are starting to take off pretty good.

Started cutting grass yesterday. Going to dig up some rose bushes and move them to a new bed this afternoon. Then maybe add some gladioli bulbs around them. Have tons of other flower seeds planted and already growing nice. This is the year I start working on my flower beds. Also need to finish getting a section of fence up out front, so I can get my morning glory vines set next to it. Started all of them from seed. They are ready to be transplanted now. Say one of my old neighbors cleaning brush out of the ditch in front of his house Friday. So I slid in and grabbed a couple of wisteria vines for free. Got them planted.

I don't know where I have been getting all of my energy from this spring, but I hope I can keep it up. Been feeling like I was 25 again.

Seeds for cool season greens that I planted 2 weeks ago are sprouting. Volunteer seeds from last years garden are sprouting all over. Rhubarb is poking out since the weekend and horseradish has been up for a week. Chives, garlic, and parsley have been growing slowly for 3-4 weeks.

I made row covers for my boxes this weekend. I bent hoops of pencil rod and spaced them at three feet in the boxes. Then I cut the large piece of heavy duty row cover I bought from Johnny's Seeds a little wider than hoops plus the box height. I sewed a hem on the sides of the covers and inserted rebar to weight the fabric.

Now I need to attach two pieces of rebar over the top of the fabric and perpendicular to the hoops to prevent the wind from blowing the covers off. This will also allow access from both sides of each box.

Lots of life in my Southern Wisconsin garden! 18 of the 20 garlic varieties are up. Reason for two not being up yet is that they just went into the ground Saturday. Had to dig the parsnips first as they were showing green leaves. Catawissa and Heritage Sweet onions have returned to life and again begin their quest to conquer the garden, if not the entire world! Leeks wintered over nicely and there's just enough for a few good soups and several plants left for seed. Shallots and potato onions both coming to life. Lots of green appearing from the dry masses of last year's chives. I-itoi multiplying onions, planted in December, appear to be living up to their reputation for producing 120 scallions from a single bulb.

In the cold frame, most of the brassica family are beginning to form their first true leaves. Lettuce almost big enough to begin stealing a few leaves. And the first tomato seedlings appeared in there over the lovely weekend.

So, spring indeed is coming, if not here already.

Martin

We got the potatoes in last week - 80 lbs in all. The peas are about 1 inch tall and the mesclun mix is coming up. The walking onions are huge but very tasty and not at all tough. Carrots, snow peas, radish, radicchio, yellow onion, red bunching onions, florence fennel, dill are all planted but not yet sprouting.

The tomato and pepper seedling have their first true leaves and are doing really well under the lights. Soon we will need to pot them on but have no idea how we will fit them all under the lights when they are transplanted.

We have been mulching the paths between the raised beds and it looks so neat - we have 6 raised beds, each 4ft by 69ft. The lumber for the sides was salvaged and the mulch for the paths is free from the county.

Also getting lots of free manure to ammend the bigger beds, I think we are up to 9 pick-up loads so far!! I love that we get all this stuff free (except for the hard work).

I think I will have to mow the lawn before the week is over.

Just wrapped up the hottest March I have even seen here in Lost Angeles.......it was upper 80s to mid 90s ALL MONTH. This was after a chilly winter that never hit 65, then we had 70 for exactly two days. Fortunately it is now winter again and cool and cloudy. March should be prime planting time, but none of my seeds germinated. The tomato and pepper and eggplant seedlings I started in Feb are doing ok, I put 4 tomatoes in the ground right out of the flat at 3 weeks of age and they are growing like weeds. My spinach is bolting, and for the third year in a row I CANNOT get beets to germinate worth a damn. The weather is so screwy in recent years it is all but impossible to grow my food anymore. My green bean plants burn up in the fierce sun, corn won't pollinate, and the poor tomatoes and peppers melt/cook right on the plants. (heavy sigh) But I am always hopeful. Tomorrow I will try again with a planting of corn and bean seeds and hope for the best. I think maybe it is time to garden like they do in South Texas, with a lattice shade cover over the entire garden 12 months out of the year......................Don't believe it when they try to tell you how nice the weather is in Southern California.....it's only nice if you are right on the coast or within 3 miles of it.