After Rain Garden Update

We had a day of solid rain on Saturday which really gave the garden a big boost.

I could hardly wait to get out there yesterday morning to see how everything looked.

The beans are up, the beans are up!  Because we have had so little in the way of warm weather, my worry-wart mind started telling me the bean seeds weren't going to germinate, but simply rot in the ground.  I think it was about mid-afternoon during the rain on Saturday while looking out the window that I thought I could see little bean sprouts poking up through the soil.  Sure 'nuf, there they are.  (Doesn't that angle of the picture make you a little woozy looking at it?)

I've planted both broccoli and cabbage from seed in the garden this year rather than started seedlings.  For two reasons:  1) I'm hoping to avoid the cycle of the white cabbage moth when they want to lay their eggs in the brassicas, and 2) I want the cabbage to mature later for better storage in the root cellar.  So far, the broccoli and red cabbage have shown a 100% germination, but the green cabbage are still no-shows.

The green peppers and slicing cucumbers are doing well in the protection of their cold frames, but I seem to have a bunch of medium-sized black ants wanting to build condominiums for all their relatives and close friends within the green pepper bed.  I've dusted them (the ants) with cinnamon and cayenne pepper and that seems to have given them the idea they're not welcome in there.

This is a shot of the old strawberry bed.  A little spotty in a few areas, but the plants are showing lots of blossoms.

The developing berries are only this far along.  Some warm weather would do them a lot of good.  The newly planted strawberries, both June bearing and everbearing, are doing very well.  I've continued to pop off any blossoms they form so all the strength will go to the plants this year.

The thin spears and ferns may be difficult to see in this picture, but our newly planted asparagus roots are coming along nicely.  The bed is an uneven, jumbled mess of dirt because I'm still in the process of filling in the trenches when the spears turn fern-like.

In my never-ending quest to grow eggplants (without a greenhouse or hoop house for protection), I may have finally hit on a good method.  This picture (Almost artistic, don't you think?  If you squint?  No?  Okay.) is looking at one of my eggplants down through the top of the Wall O' Water I put around them.  So far, it looks healthier than any eggplant I've ever tried to grow.  Seems the Wall O' Water is helping tremendously in our cool weather.  Without it, I'm sure the eggplants would have packed their bags and gone south by now.  Way south.

We're getting more rain today.  Too wet to do anything outside so this will be an inside catch-up day.  Being Monday, also, it means laundry and ironing which won't leave a whole heckuva lot of time for much else.  Maybe a little time in my quilt room.  Yeah, now there's a really good idea!