12:00 PM  [30 Apr 2009 | Thursday]

1st Post of the Year

The garden is happening. We have plenty of baby plants growing in the greenhouse which I put on 4/10. On the 19th planted the sugar snap peas and the garlic and shallots from last year. The garlics are going strong and the peas broke through the dirt on Monday the 27th. We planted a strawberry patch in the lower garden where there is an invasive weed that has taken over. I dug out as many of the weeds as I could and got them. The flies are really starting to bite now. The temp has been in the 80's F this week dropping back down to the 60's yesterday. Today I planted the first of the potatoes, red gold. those are all from last year's crop. It's cloudy and threatening to rain later. The first Red Wing Blackbird arrived on March 14, first bear showed up on March 25, first Robin on March 28, first Cowbirds on April 6, first Tree Swallow on April 18 and first Ruby Throated Grosbeak on April 25.

We shared seeds with our friend Joe at the Mount Laurel condo. He's all set to start gardening. I described the problems I'm having with my roto-tiller (it runs for ten minutes and then stops) and he thought it might be a faulty temperature coil. So I've been tilling with the pick ax. Not so bad for now, but man that can get tiring when it's hot out. Lots of winter rye grass in.

Here are the baby garlics. The shallots just starting coming up yesterday.