A Brief Introduction to the Garden Season

Well spring is here and we have started gardening. This is a very short post about it because 1.) we are about to go away for the weekend and 2.) it is pretty much the same as usual and 3.) I think we are both feeling a bit blasé about gardening this year.

However, we have planted our peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants; our onions, leeks, and shallots, a few other things; and sweet potatoes are being sprouted for slips. All in pots, of course. On nice days they get hauled out and on less nice days they stay inside. Since it hasn't actually gotten all that nice out yet, even when they are out they tend to stay under a sheet of plastic. 

So far we have planted the early peas (they're up!) and tsk-tsked over the state of the spinach (sadly nibbled by mice and rabbits) and lettuce (pretty much all eaten by mice and rabbits) that we planted last fall and carefully covered for the winter.

Otherwise I have been doing some weeding and also pulled all these strawberries out. They are now residing either in the bed in the top right of the photo, along with a few irises I don't know what to do with, or they are in the compost. This, if anyone remembers, is a strawberry that grew from a seed about 3 years back. Looks like it's a good go-er! 

Mr. Ferdzy has been installing a 2-foot high chicken wire fence around the main garden, see comments about rabbits. Rabbits, it is known, go in cycles and they have been bad the last few years. I had been hoping that last year was the peak and this year they would crash, but judging from the number I have seen around this spring they are not at the peak yet. So if we expect to save anything from constant nibbling, they must be excluded. It will be a pain in the arse to only have a few gates instead of being able to enter or exit the garden at the end of every path, but on the other hand I expect to enjoy having more vegetables.

Posted in: Ontario Food