first pea harvest

Not much to do in the garden today as we had an inch of well needed rain early this morning and things are still pretty wet.  I did have a chance to pick a few peas from the potager.  This first harvest weighed half a pound. 

Ate a few straight from the garden and stir fried a few into a veggie scramble.  I think the rest will go along to the baseball game tonight for snacking.  I am planning to plant some more seeds for a fall harvest.  I am thinking a wide row perhaps in one of the raised rows that are almost finished although I do have some space left that is not raised rows.  Perhaps it will be a good opportunity to do a comparison.

gone three days and look what happens

Last night i returned after three wonderful days in Kansas.  Well, to be honest it was two days in the car, one fun evening, one lovely day and one fun breakfast in Kansas.  The reason for the Kansas trip was to attend the graduation of my youngest, Caitlin, who received her Master's Degree in Interior Architecture and Product Design from Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.  I couldn't be prouder and that event deserves its own post and I will do that soon.

A lot happened while I was gone.

We had a shot of rain on Friday night or Saturday, more rain during the day on Sunday and still more rain during the night on Sunday night.  I hear predictions of more rain Monday afternoon or evening and maybe more still the next couple of days. 

The lawn grew.  It desperately needs to be mowed but of course it cannot be mowed while it is this wet.  One good thing is that by the time I am able to mow it i should have enough grass clippings to pick up and spread between the rows in my new growing space.  Not only is it long but there are wide swaths of yellow dandelions.

The orchard--the apple trees and plum trees are blooming.  We have flowers opening on both apple trees and both plum trees.  Both of the pears, last year's and the replacement planted a few weeks ago, are getting leaves and I am hoping that flowers won't be far behind.  The flowering cherry, an ornamental tree is also blooming.  I am hoping that will bring the mason bees to the yard and they will find the house I set out for them.

The asparagus went from being a bunch of spears to being fern-like over the weekend.  I knows that there is probably a word for that but it eludes me now.

The rhubarb is getting bigger and still needs desperately to be weeded.

More of the raspberry canes are leafing out.

The blueberries do not look any worse.  The one variety still has no leaves but the other two varieties are looking okay.   I am glad for the rain because I think the rain water might be better than the well water.  Last year I pH tested my well water and it was alkaline so it is not helping to acidify my soil.  I think that I will make an attempt to capture rainwater over the next few days and use that for watering.

The peas are up.  The transplanted kale are surviving.  The potatoes are just starting to come in a couple spots.  Maybe some varieties are earlier than others.  Nothing coming yet from the strawberries, a couple of the grapevines are just starting to get leaves the others are not yet.  Nothing much from the garlic. 

putting on my mittens to plant a few peas

A few days ago I was reading some gardening tips online that talked about presprouting pea seeds to get a jump on the season so I decided to give it a try.  I took my pea seeds and placed them in a damp paper towel on a plate and put the paper towel in a zippered plastic bag.  Today, this is what my peas look like:

They are plumped up and some of them have sprouted.  We are expecting rain later today and tomorrow so I think that it is time to get them in the ground.

It is cold out.  The weather channel online says that it is 40 but feels like 34.  It is cloudy and a little windy.  Not a nice day to be working outside for any length of time.  I am going to try wide row planting and will scatter the presprouted peas seeds into a small raised bed box.  I am hoping that as the peas grow the plants will support each other.

Dad and Lisa and I have been discussing a couple watering concerns.  I have one at my house and Lisa has one of her own.  The area that is the new 'cornfield' is a long way from a water source.  I have been planning to run a really long hose through the grove and use that to water the cornfield.  I was hoping that most of the time mother nature would do the watering and the hose would be mostly for dry spells.  Last year we had a drought so there is no guarantee about rain.

Lisa's issue is with her spot at the community garden.  In the past they have been able to run a really long hose to the garden from the nearby apartment building.  This year it sounds like that might not be an option and there are no other nearby sources of water.  We discussed harvesting rainwater off of the shed nearby but there are no gutters on the building.

So I went to Craig's List looking for the 275 gallon white totes. A while back i missed out on an opportunity to buy one or several and was hoping that there were more to be had.  I did not find any of those but I did find for sale a water tank on a trailer. 

The seller had used it to water trees.  Dad contacted the seller to check it out and see if he could negotiate a price and I found out last night that it is ours!  We pick it up on Wednesday afternoon.  I think that it will possibly solve both my water issues and Lisa's.  Yay!