I also had to pull a beet so I could look at it better. Sometimes you just have to be a little crazy and do something like that.

Tonight I planted kohlrabi, rutabaga, and broccoli for my winter garden. Hopefully I can get the seeds to sprout. I plan on taking over the potato bed that got decimated by blight and planting some more winter garden stuff there.

I had a feeling revisit me that I haven’t had since last year. It was the feeling of, “I’m going to beat up some bozo deer” anger. It’s a valid feeling, really! The herd of deer that seems to hang out here in the summer time decided to get brave, come up to our house, and do a midnight munching on my aronia berry start. I was so happy with how much it had grown as I had bought it as a seedling last year.

I planted some cosmo’s in my garden this year. They are so bright and cheery that I always smile when I look at them.

Last fall we got our garlic planted at the right time and we added complete organic fertilizer to the soil. It’s amazing how much bigger the bulbs were for this year’s harvest. This is only the second time we have grown garlic but I can’t imagine not having it out in the garden from now on. It doesn’t need watering (in our climate), is easy to keep weeded, and has few pests. (Other than pocket gophers.)

Now we will have the hard task of trying out the varieties we planted and seeing how much we like them (yummy). Of course, when it comes time to plant again this fall, I will probably have to plant some new garlic varieties as well.

Two weeks from now when the garlic has dried, I will braid them and hang them in my kitchen. It’s nice having garlic cloves close at hand when you are cooking.

Here is a picture of it from afar. The garden is looking a little better.

The things we planted late were mostly squash and melons. Though, due to the Aggie episode, I have no idea what a lot of the plants are. Since we were working on limited “after the flu energy” we just dug holes instead of manually tilling the whole bed, put fertilizer in the holes, and then planted the starts.

Our three potato rows still look really nice. You can see a size difference when you are out in the garden as all the rows were planted at different times. Lee planted some of his Painted Mountain corn in the middle row. We didn’t plant any popcorn or sweet corn as we were to late in the season to do that. The Painted Mountain corn doesn’t need as many days to mature so we took a gamble on it. After Lee planted it the weather decided to get cold and cloudy before it turned blazing hot. It’s been about two weeks now and nada. We aren’t sure what happened. My mom planted corn this year also and she had really spotty germination. Guess it’s not a corn year here for us.

On a potato note, we are seeing some blight in the non-certified seed potatoes we bought. We didn’t have this problem last year. Thankfully, only the red potatoes seem to be affected so far, as the Cal White’s in the rest of the row look great.

Only one type of carrot I planted germinated. So far they are growing okay, at least I think they are. Lee has been trying to trap voles and gophers in the garden again. Hopefully he can get them as I don’t want my root crops getting wiped out.

I swear I planted this lettuce two and a half months ago. I thought cool season plants would have liked all the rain we’ve had since then. Last year when I was planting lettuce we had it taking off like weeds–now a whole herd of turtles would have won a race about 20 times since I planted this year’s little patch.

My beets are still growing, YEAH! Hopefully I get a nice harvest as I am dying to can lots of beets using my most amazing beet recipe that I tried last year.

I bought a couple pepper starts and my mom gave me two more. I put some of that biofilm around them after the weather got cloudy to help them grow.

Yummy, I foresee cabbage soup in my future.

My collards are coming along. They need weeded but I can’t believe that they are growing. The slugs almost wiped them out at one point, but they survived. I planted them two months ago from seed.

My broccoli looks really great. These were planted as starts about two months ago too, and also got attacked by slugs. I’m always impressed with how well broccoli explodes into growth. It makes me feel like I’m such an amazing gardener even though I had nothing to do with it. I did notice a worm munching on it today so I need to break out my BT tomorrow.

We bought three cucumber starts as we were way behind due to the weather and then us getting sick. I find it humorous we only have three after my huge row I had planted last year. Ah, well, they seem to be growing fine.

Lee’s hops are winding themselves themselves up their posts. Since the first year of growth is not nearly as substantial as the second years, we are just using my pole bean poles. I didn’t get any beans planted this summer anyways, so I didn’t need to use them.

I’m probably going to harvest my garlic in the next day or so. It will be exciting trying the new varieties and seeing which ones we like the best and replant next year. I did pull my three remaining elephant garlic that survived the destruction of the fat pocket gopher. They didn’t get as big as I had hoped they would. On the other hand, each row was tunneled under so the remaining ones probably had some serious root damage going on.

One part of our garden still needs mowed. It’s pretty funny.

I have to say that I like them. I like them so much that I may just have to grow some more next year.

I talked to another neighbor a few days ago who told me that they had planted twice this year as the first time everything rotted. They are hoping for better luck this time around. My mom is squeaking things into her garden this week also, while not planting any corn. On her north sided hill she didn’t figure that it would have enough time to grow.

My plan is to plant a winter garden instead. Last year I didn’t because I was so frazzled by the end of the summer I didn’t feel like it. This year, with not a whole lot going on out there, I will still be in the mood. Besides, it feels like I haven’t even started gardening yet. I might see if I can pick some vegetables at some local farms when they come into season. That way I will be able to still do some of my canning and preserving that I want to do.

This past weekend was really beautiful. The perfect day for doing some weeding. So, hmmmm, where do I start? After all these months of rain and no weeding going on this is what our garden looked like. Makes a girl want to cry. Now if I can just find where I planted those beets….

I used some crushed oyster shell back at the end of May to help combat my slug problem. Lets just say it worked not one iota, and before I could get my sluggo bait they had wiped out all my newly sprouted seedlings. I have some collards that kind of survived and since I started using sluggo bait they have perked up along with my broccoli. I was really looking forward to my kohlrabi and cabbage too. I’d eat the slugs out of vengeance, but they just don’t sounds as appetizing. Bleck.

Our potatoes look gorgeous. At least what you can see of them. They finally got hilled for the first time. Lee had to bring the lawn mower into the garden and mowed down the pathways. Then he mowed where he hopes to dig new beds if he ever feels better. I couldn’t help but have a few giggles that we were having to mow our vegetable garden.

Since I saw the little baby slug creeps on my basil one night, I’m thinking it’s okay to blame them. For once my basil that I didn’t get planted looks better then the planted ones. Oh, it may be root bound, but at least the leaves look ever so much more tasty.

Jackie suggested in a comment that I could try crushed up egg shells as a slug deterrent. Since I didn’t have any fresh egg shells to use at this particular moment, and I didn’t feel like digging through the compost pile, I decided to use some of my chicken’s crushed oyster shells. I’m hoping that it will be much the same. Whenever I make it to the store, I am going to get some Sluggo too.

While I was out in the garden sprinkling anything that looked slug tasty with shells, I noticed something. I do believe that some of my carrots decided to sprout. Not very much of it, but a little. I think it only took it three weeks. Only things is, the weeds are huge in the carrot bed. I’d feel suspicious that we are growing Queens Anne’s Lace (which abounds on our place) but I have never seen weeds line themselves up quite like that.

Despite the weeks of cool weather and rain that is trying to stop all garden progress, we got some seeds that sprouted. “WOOHOO!” is all I can say. I thought that these seeds would have rotted but they proved me wrong. It’s nice to be proved wrong sometimes.

My basil starts may look like crap, but at least my potatoes look awesome. Maybe what I should have done is planted my whole garden as potatoes.

Lee is very happy because all four of his hop plants came up. He is going to need to build a trellis for them very soon when they decided to go on their growth marathon.

My hanging baskets that I put together are looking nice. I always find them cheery in the summer time.

Lee makes fun of me for putting the hanging baskets up on our house. He said it is like trying to put earrings on a pig. I can’t help it if we have a missing window, missing corbels, missing shingles, missing lights, and a broken screen door. One day those things will all be fixed and then he will probably tell me that the peacock doesn’t need any more plumage.

When we had the two Port Orford cedar trees taken out by the front of our house, their stumps remained behind. One of them has a huge rotten spot in it so I decided to plant something in it. It’s going to be a while until we get to landscaping the front, so maybe by the time we do the stump will have been rotted out from me using it as a planter. I planted a plume poppy in it that I picked up at the Master Gardeners annual plant sale.

Lee now feels like a bad chicken owner. We again have no idea what happened. There is no way any animal could have gotten into the chicken coop and killed it. There were no marks on the chicken anyway. And why was the waterer empty when I just filled it the night before? Did I not screw the lid on right? We are scratching our heads over those two questions. So we are now down to 9 chickens. ARGG! I really, REALLY, hope nothing happens to any more of them.

As Lee was burying the dead hen in our field we noticed a white dog sleeping out further in the pasture. Lee said that he saw a streak of white dog earlier that day when he was out. So now it appears we have acquired a stray dog. I can’t get close to it and have no idea what to do with it. If I see it around tomorrow then I will bring some food out to the field. I don’t want the dog to have a Jack snack because it is hungry.

It’s been raining every day almost since we planted our tomatoes last week. We are hoping they don’t get some kind of mildew disease from this weather, because I don’t want to have to replace them all. I can’t believe that it is almost June and there’s is still a list of things we just can’t plant. The ground is too wet and the weather too cold. What has been growing in this weather is the slugs! Those slugs have been munching on my basil and other seedlings and I am not amused. With so much moisture around the D.E. doesn’t work especially fast. So I am considering what to use as a slug control. Lee is suggesting trying out a beer trap.

This year tomato-wise I got:

• Stupice
• Legend
• Gill’s All Purpose
• Fantastic
• Heinz 2653
• Nova
• Cordova
• Old German
• Sun Gold
• Red Current
• Pineapple (actually a Ground Cherry)

My mom gave me some Garden Bio- Film to try out. I decided to use it around my tomatoes. The heat will make my tomatoes happy, less weeds will make Lee happy, and when I get my peppers and eggplants planted I will use it on them too. It will be interesting to see if it makes a difference in my pepper and eggplant production. The cool summer nights here make it harder to grow heat loving vegetables.

I labeled each tomato cage with the corresponding tomato name and whether it was Indeterminate or Determinate. That way I will have a better feel for what is ripening faster, which plant is healthier, and which tastes better. I had my tomato names written down last year but it was on a piece of paper that was always in the house, so I never knew which variety I was looking at.

Since this weekend was beautiful, Lee and I spent it outside working in the garden. I got my first sunburn and Lee got his first tan. He was wearing gloves so his is a funny tan. We got the last thirty feet of potatoes put in (ninety feet in total), planted all but two of my tomatoes, weeded, and planted lettuce, basil, cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi, collards, and broccoli. Along the way there was an intentional massacre of Poison Hemlock all over our property, field mowing, and we refilled the asparagus trench.

So far we have these planted in the garden:

• Tomatoes
• Potatoes
• Garlic
• Onions
• Carrots (not sure if they are germinating)
• Parsnips (not sure if they are germinating)
• Beets
• Sugar Peas
• Cauliflower
• Hops
• Collards
• Lettuce
• Kohlrabi
• Broccoli
• Basil

I felt happy with that list until I looked at what I still need to plant. We are a little behind over here. I guess I shouldn’t complain because I know we aren’t the only ones. The weather has been a bear and with Lee hand-digging each bed instead of rototilling it takes us a little longer.

This is my list of vegetables that still need to be planted:

• Peppers
• Corn
• Pumpkins
• Melons
• Squash
• Beans
• Cucumbers
• Turnips
• Rutabagas
• Jerusalem Artichokes
• Eggplants
• Sweet potatoes
• Joi Choi

There are some new things that we are really excited about planting this year. One is Broom Corn (actually a form of Sorghum). Lee wants to try his hand at making some brooms out of it. The second is Painted Mountain Corn. It is an extremely short season Indian corn variety that was breed from over 70 heirloom varieties and is perfect for stressed and cold climates. You can eat it fresh, creamed, ground into flour, boiled into hominy, parched, or used as an animal feed. The third is the hops Lee planted. He hopes to use them to make beer in the future. We got some sweet potato starts that I am really hopeful will turn out. I have recently decided that I love them and can’t get enough of them. I don’t believe that I ever ate any as a kid so this is a new vegetable love affair for me. Lee, on the other hand, hated them as a kid and has only recently changed his opinion.

Where Lee hasn’t hoed in the garden the grass is taking over. It’s really out of control. Lee is thinking that he might have to mow the garden before he can hoe new rows for me.

We also got a chuckle out of the last seed potatoes we planted Sunday. They had been sitting in a cupboard in a paper bag for a couple of months now. Due to weather and other potatoes having the honor of being planted before them, they had to wait. This is what they looked like. They were literally growing out of the paper sack searching for light.

I was also amazed by how odd my little asparagus looked. I kept asking Lee if it was going to grow any “real” leaves. He informed me that my asparagus was “normal” after many concerned questions were directed at him. I had never seen an asparagus plant in person before this time.