A day for gardening- after what seems like weeks of cold and rainy weather, we have again been blessed with sunshine.  It turns out that this has been a strange, but, I'm sorry to report, typical Oregon spring.  We started out with several weeks of unseasonably warm weather, which got everyone out tilling the soil, then our usual cool, wet days returned. Cool, wet, stormy days and nights.  Soggy, wind blown, dreary days.  Not the kind that inspire weeding and planting, or encourage little plants to thrive.  But, today it was nice.  Nice enough for a tour of the garden and a day of digging around in the dirt.

If you remember, Reyn got an early start on planting seeds for salad greens.  He always starts his seeds in pots, then transplants them into the garden while they are quite small.  This year he planted what seemed like a zillion little lettuce, spinach, and chard plants.  Some in the garden and some in the cold-frame.  Most of the starts have survived the weather, and seem to be taking hold, while a few have been munched on by our resident snails.  Some of the greens were transplanted directly into the soil within the cold-frame.  They have done extremely well, better than those exposed to the elements, in fact we have begun to harvest them for salads.  The lingering question is could/should we have delayed the initial seed planting until the weather stabilized?  It seems to have taken quite a while for the transplanted seedlings to show much growth, however, they are now taking off.   I'm now wondering if we had a mild winter, might we be able to maintain a lettuce crop simply by growing it under the cold-frame. I'm having visions of cold-frames covering our garden.  Hmmmm. . . . .

We now have spinach, several kinds of lettuce, swiss chard, potatoes, and peas doing quite well.  We have have begun to harvest the lettuce, spinach, and some of our rhubarb.  We have chosen to let our asparagus patch go unpicked until next spring.  The spears have grown quite tall, about 3 feet, and are beginning to take on their feathery foliage.  It adds a sculptural effect to the garden. Tiny salad greens are growing in decorative rows between the larger plants, with the hope that the greens will be harvested before the potatoes, garlic, or whatever, needs the space.  As they get larger, they will form a lovely border around the garden beds.

In addition the the vegetables, I have started three trays of zinnia seeds.  I planted them in my little pots made from rolled newspaper so they will be easier to transplant.  I kept them inside the house until they germinated and gained some leaves, then moved them out into the light.  Colder temperatures are predicted for tonight, so the I've moved the flowers into the cold-frame for protection.  I;m hoping that it doesn't  get too cold.  We always have warmer nights when it's cloudy and wet, but I'll take a clear sky any day.