It actually looks like a garden.  Things are really starting to take shape in the garden this week.  The sun has continued to shine periodically and the weather has been fairly mild.  I still worry that we are moving too fast. We've been fooled before, two years ago we had snow on April 4th,  but the ground is not too wet and the fruit trees are blooming. Nonetheless, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that we don't get frozen or rained out.

Reyn's new cold frame has worked very well, he has it filled with seedlings and has been busy this week transplanting cool weather crops directly into the garden.   For years he religiously rototilled the garden after the ground dried out in the spring.  Two years ago we put in new retaining walls and brought in additional soil and compost for the garden.  Since that time he has divided the garden into permanent beds and no longer uses the rototiller.  During the winter he usually plants a cover crop, but this year he covered the entire garden with leaves instead.  Now, when he is ready to plant one of the beds, he simply rakes off the leaves- which go into the compost pile- turns over the soil and plants.  There are surprisingly few weeds in the garden.

Today was a very productive work day.  Reyn transplanted a multitude of Walla Walla Sweet onions - spacing them one hamburger bun's width apart for the perfect sized onions.  It won't be long before I'll start using these onions for scallions. Ours are always so much nicer than those I find at the grocer. He also planted Early Wonder Tall Top beets, Mokum carrots, and four kinds of potatoes.

Garden progress includes a bed of healthy garlic plants, rhubarb that is leafed out and beginning to produce stalks.  This is the third year for one of our two plants, so we should be able to pick with abandon this. We now have 16 asparagus spears up in the new asparagus bed. It was planted just a year ago, so we'll let the asparagus go another year before picking any.  Hard to do, but worth it. The raspberry bushes are leafed out and looking very happy - they've been given a couple of good soakings with my handy fish fertilizer.  I weeded the strawberry bed again today.  This is the second year for these plants.  They have nicely filled out the bed and should produce a good supply of berries for us.  Many of the plants are flowering, but it is way too early for berries.  I'm looking forward to strawberries for breakfast and that good backyard jam.

Garden Notes:

Planted Mokum carrots - 62 days

Planted Early Wonder Tall Top beets

Planted potatoes - Adirondack Blue, Nortoka Russets, fingerlings, Yukon Gold

transplanted Walla Walla Sweet onions