Garden Update: Yep, Raining Again!

Since my last post it has rained all but 3 days; and it's not expected to stop for 4 more.  Luckily the weatherman is on my good side again for predicting sunshine for the next week after that!  One good week of sun should be enough to finally get all those transplants growing, and to get the second bed turned and amended and planted with more transplants.

My brother, for those who don't know, has a very nice heated grow room and was planning to get my hot weather starts going for me.  His grow room got infested with spider mites a few weeks ago though and is currently under quarantine.  Hopefully he'll still be able to get things started and grown to transplant size before June.  My fingers are crossed that we'll have tomatoes and peppers that are happy and healthy by then.  Last year he lost a lot of them to damping off and mildew issues from lack of air circulation.  This year he has a better ventilation system.

Since I gave him all my seeds for starting but the winter squash, I figured I'd go ahead and get them rolling along today.  I planted Buttercup Squash, Waltham Butternut Squash, and Delicata Squash.  Personally I am not a fan of squash; I kind of hate it.  My mom loves Delicata though, and will eat the others as well.  The main reason for growing them is to fill in the blackberry zone in the back yard.  If I tear out enough blackberries and put in squashes that grow fast and are huge and shade out the ground; my hope is the squashes will also shade out the blackberry roots and help keep them in check.  Of course, having squashes for eating isn't a bad thing either.

Meanwhile, back in the garden... Nothing in the main bed is really growing yet, a few leaves have appeared here and there but not much growth beyond that.  Who could blame them? All this rain doesn't help and they are still recovering from the transplanting.  On the plus side, none of the transplants have died, and the cat-proof covers have done their job.  The kales in the whiskey barrel are doing great though, they have really taken off and are actually putting on some decent sized leaves (about the size of my thumb), which is a big improvement over a week ago when they only had their tiny first set of leaves.

I'm still not seeing any growth from the potatoes, or the rhubarb, but I have heard they can take a while to get going. My cherry tree is popping out green leave buds though, so I guess I didn't kill it after all. :)

In other news:  I was out of town most of last week and apparently one of the cats tried to jump on my little greenhouse.  The cat broke through the plastic cover and tipped over the entire thing, including my tray of starts that was hardening off.  My husband did his best to save everything (and he did great!), I'm hoping the trauma won't do too much harm, but a few stems are looking kinked despite the plants looking as healthy as ever.

And that's the news for today!  Hope everyone's enjoying Spring and growing some garden goodness!