Gardeners: how's it looking?

[AmLitHist]

It was 27 degrees here this morning. Making garden is a good ways off yet.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I ended up weeding a portion of one of the front gardens yesterday. It has a gentle slope to it and I'm considering planting some blueberry bushes, or raspberry bushes along it. Hmm. Decisions to make!

[Harlow2]

The indoor micros all have tomatoes that should be blushing soon; need to get started seeding the outdoor ones. And the lettuce and peppers. We plant out sometime after Mother's Day here, so I need to get moving.

[lightning]

I didn't get as far as I wanted to, over the weekend. I spent a lot of time cleaning up brush, leaves, twigs, etc. that had accumulated over the winter. From my window, it didn't seem like much, but after getting close and actually sticking my hands into the garden, I realized that I had a lot more work than I was expecting.

[Parasaurolophus]

Took 30 minutes this morning to clear most of the raspberries from my beds in the back garden, and transplanted them to the front garden. We'll see if they make it.

[clean]

I put together a store bought raised bed. It is some composite material.  Initially I made it 4X8 and it was 5 1/2 inches high. I decided that was not tall enough to give the plants a good rooting space.  I redid it and shoveled the soil mix to the other half.  Today I bought a bunch of more bags of soil and some more plants. 
I am waiting for more raised bed material so that I can get another 4x8 one finished.  I am sure that I will need more soil, but I can only do so much in any one day. 

Today I will get the potting soil out of the truck and to the back of the house and fill the other half of the first bed and get the plants I bought planted.  That is this afternoon's goal! 

Plenty of work to be done! 

[AmLitHist]

^^Jealous!^^

I'd love to be out playing in the dirt!  It's still chilly and off-and-on rainy here in central IL.

[Parasaurolophus]

The raspberries seem to have survived so far. Cleared the last of them out of the back gardeb and transplanted them to the front.

Now I can finally plant whatever I decide to plant!

[Parasaurolophus]

Planted my seeds today--the earliest yet. More kale (always! These were weird pearl-like seeds though--'kale storm' apparently, which I've never seen before), tons of corn, and some cabbage, cauliflower, terragon, and lavender.

[clean]

Im planting today too!

I bought starter plants from Lowes for squash (4 sets), eggplant (2), tomato (4, different kinds). 
My second 4x8 elevated garden is ready for seeds today!  Im going to plant 2 kinds of okra, sweet corn, carrots, and bunching onion seeds.  A corworker will provide heirloom seeds for cantaloupe on the express condition that I plant them on Saturday at the latest, at the latest!

Given how much my squash and tomatoes have spread out in the days since I first planted them, I have clearly overestimated how much i can plant.... and The Price of Seeds!!! 

Anyway, I am looking forward to the fun in store!! 

[mamselle]

Does anyone grow spinach?

I'm not such a fan of kale, but love spinach, and I've never been sure if spinach needed such tight conditions that I could even consider it.

M.

[Harlow2]

Still too iffy here to plant but I did get lettuce and tomatoes started indoors and have 3 micros that will go out when it warms up

[clean]

The first tomato plant I got from Lowes and put in the raised bed, is now in bloom! T here are not a lot of blooms, but I can see a few from the window of the house!

I planted Okra seeds last week and they are sprouting!

In the inside seed starter kit, I added water, which caused to peat moss to expand, planted some seeds and I can see today that some have already sprouted!!  No leaves yet, but green stalks are poking up! 
IN the starter pods are more okra, sweet corn and clumping onion I think.

My coworker gave me some seeds for cantaloupe that I planted yesterday.  I also filled some of the cups that I got the starter plants in with potting mix and I will plant some more seeds in there to get them started  too. 

Hopefully my beds will soon be full (but not Too Full), but this is my first venture with a raised bed, so I may have overestimated how much will fit.

I have a game camera out too. It has indicated that my night time, back yard pooper is an opossum.  Before much longer, I will have to get the live trap from the garage and remove the critter. 
I know that the city used to pick up opossum that were trapped, so that is my hope... let the city pick it up and 'take care of it' from there. 

Im not going to share my garden output with a possum!!  (from the 'healthy view' on the camera and the 'quality of the poop' i find I suspect that it is cleaning up the neighbor's pet's food dishes.  I HOPE that no one is actively feeding it! 

[Puget]

I have a game camera out too. It has indicated that my night time, back yard pooper is an opossum.  Before much longer, I will have to get the live trap from the garage and remove the critter. 
I know that the city used to pick up opossum that were trapped, so that is my hope... let the city pick it up and 'take care of it' from there. 

Im not going to share my garden output with a possum!!  (from the 'healthy view' on the camera and the 'quality of the poop' i find I suspect that it is cleaning up the neighbor's pet's food dishes.  I HOPE that no one is actively feeding it!

Opossums eat pests, including ticks-- I'd suggest letting your nighttime visitor be! You can put up some mesh around your raised bed to protect it.

[clean]

I set the camera up because it was using my backyard as a potty, and I wasnt sure what was leaving me messages and I had evil thoughts that one of my neighbors might have been using the 'over the fence' method of cleaning up after their dogs! 


AS for ticks, we are in a manicured lawn neighborhood.  IF we have ticks, it would be because the opossum transported them!

From the interweb:
"While possums wander around the forest or the outskirts of your own yard, they pick up ticks in their fur along the way, and then they eat them. All of them, well 95% at least. One possum will likely eat up to 5,000 ticks a season."

So I will risk a few extra ticks in the yard to not have possum poop in the yard, and have one eat my crops!