With waves of heat, summer is here. It's amazing to compare photos now from photos just a few weeks ago. We've been enjoying spinach, mesclun and oak leaf lettuce from the garden, as well as radishes. I've also started getting food from the CSA I joined this year. So we're awash in green vegetables right now.
Here's the Garlic, Broccoli, and Brussels Sprouts.

Lettuce, beets, mesclun, spinach, dill, peas and beans in the background.
Some of the tomatoes have outgrown the walls of water and are in cages now. Peppers are still in the red walls.

Here is my mystery squash which was just about 5 inches tall at the beginning of May and has now reached the top of the tepee. It's survived large ants and striped yellow bugs and continues to send out new vine shoots from almost every leaf junction. We just don't have any idea what it is going to be.
I'm a little worried because I spaced 3 different kind of squash pretty close together in the other bed, and I'm not sure that they are going to vine up the trellis. If they don't I may have to pull them before they flower because their leaves will get too big and short out the electric fence.

Progress

Some progress in the garden. Not many of my peas sprouted, so I re-seeded. None of the 2nd seeding sprouted, so I'm trying to sprout them inside in a wet paper towel, and then plant them when I see the sprouts forming.Lettuce, Spinach and Mesclun are coming along. The walls of water are basically warming the soil for tomatoes and peppers that won't go in until June
Some of the squash under the glass is beginning to sprout. Radishes are coming long and the Broccoli and Brussels Sprouts have transplanted well.

All my onions have sprouted and I've also planted leeks and shallots.

Also today I got a very large box in the mail. I received an early birthday present of a composter :) I'm excited. It's an Envirocycle Rotating Composter. Ever since I asked for it I've been bemoaning all the kitchen scraps that have gone in the trash. Now it's finally here and we can start making compost.

Garden In May

A view of the garden in early May. In the foreground a tepee structure that Matt built for me so that the mystery squash that are growing can go up. My mom and I found the mystery squash in late April. They had seed leaves just like a squash or cucumber so we decided to transplant them and see what they become. All the holes dug around it are filled with onion seedlings.
In the next bed the red walls of water protect Brussels Sprouts and broccoli seedling. Garlic is growing behind that as well as carrots, radishes, shallots and some other squash that I hope will sprout.

In the third bed you can see we have lettuce, beets, mesclun (under jars), spinach, dill(under jars), and peas. The peas had a horrible germination rate. I'm not sure what I did wrong. I'll fill the other half of the bed with tomatoes and beans when the frost date is past.

Rug and Garden Update

Stage 3 of my rug.
Pants (and skirt) count: 8
Obviously I haven't worked much on it since February. This week was school vacation and in addition to working on my rug, I started my garden. We seemed to have jumped from Winter to Summer with temperatures up to 80 this week. I'm betting that it won't get too cold before the end of May when the last frost date is (or that if it does, I can cover my seedlings to protect them.) So last weekend we repaired the raised beds here on the property, and turned over the soil and plotted out my squares. This week I've seeded dill, beets, spinach, mesclun and peas outside and many more things inside to transplant latter. Spring is so exciting!

Spring?

This week we started to shovel the snow bank that has collected as the snow slid off our roof this winter. The snow banks sits right on top of the the flower bed where the spring crocuses, daffiodills and tulips will sprout. We're trying to help them out by breaking up the bank so it will melt faster. Today I sat down with the seed catalog and a notebook to plan my garden for the summer. Some crops can be planted 4 weeks before our frost date (May 28th) but I'm not sure if the ground will be dry enough by the beginning of May. I also planned out for crops that will keep producing after the fall frost date. Our season is so short that I have to plant them in mid July for them to be mature by then. I'm hoping we can make the garden work and prevent the groundhog from eating the green shoots.

Rug 2

Stage 2 of the Rug

Pants Count: 6 (but 1/2 a leg of 2 pairs of pants remains for later)