Starting another season

Had some snow on a trip to New York a week ago Friday (March 8) and I'm hoping that's it for winter. Because I've started planting. The garden is relatively weed-free, thanks to my new toy, the cultivator.

Here's a view of the garden. Not much to see, but there is garlic over on the left-hand side, if you look carefully.

I've already put in some early plants:

Swiss chard
Broccolini
Spinach
Lettuce
Kale
Kholrabi

The spinach and lettuce are in a row that will eventually go to cucumbers and squash--hoping the leaf vegetables are ready early enough. Swiss chard and broccolini  are  new this year.

I also put in the onions. This year I'm trying them from plants.

I assume the idea is that they will awaken from dormancy when they get wet. I watered them, and am now waiting for rain. It was supposed to rain this weekend. What happened?

End of the tomatoes

They were still getting ripe, but more slowly. Still, I thought it was time to put them out of their misery, because I'm going to have to clean up the garden sometime. There are also still green beans. And I even picked a few raspberries. This is surprising because everything has usually come to an end by mid-October, but I guess the weather has been warmer this year.

But it's really time to leave the garden. The garlic is sprouting well, and I anticipate lots next year. Critters don't like it. The herbs will reach an end with colder weather which is bound to come soon. So, like the Nationals, I have to say "wait till next year."

Still harvesting

For the past few weeks, I've been getting about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of raspberries every couple of days, some tomatoes every few days, and quite a few green beans. I think maybe the last zucchini has finally given up...but maybe not? This is surprising, and will also push off my final garden clean-up for a while.

And I planted lots of garlic---a double row. It's coming up and getting ready for the winter.

Garlic planted...and lots of green beans

I planted the garlic last weekend. It was time for it to go into a shortened row (I try to rotate), so I am trying a trick from the Internet---two rows eight inches apart. If it works, I'll have an awful lot of garlic next year. I got such great garlic this year (every head was large and fat) that I find it hard to believe it wasn't just luck.

And then I went to pick the beans after having left them for a few days. Got about 1 3/4 pounds! Not that we needed any, so I used a few in a salmon salad and blanched and froze the rest.

What happened to the evil squirrels (or racoons)?

A couple of weeks ago something odd happened. Whatever was eating the tomatoes as they ripened, and stripping the bean plants, suddenly went away. Now I have a few end of summer tomatoes turning red with no harm done, and handfuls of green beans.

Good...but strange.

Grapes, figs, and more racoons

Monday: Picked some edamame. Had them for dinner. Very nice. Determined to pick the rest on Thursday, blanch them, and freeze them.
Tuesday, Wednesday: kept checking the edamame. Looked good.
Thursday evening. Went out to pick the edamame. And they were all gone. Stripped from the plants. Finis. I have to assume it is racoons.

Plus, I've been forced to do some experiments with peas. I planted pea seeds on Saturday. Sunday morning, here' what I found:

Yep. Something dug into the ground and got all but one of the 90-some peas I planted. Since then, I've tried replanting (gone the next morning) and bird netting (gone again). Tonight I put down half-inch hardware cloth held down with staples. Anything that wants those peas is going to have to move that hardware cloth.

Good news: the fig tree is going to give me a dozen figs in its second year! And I picked some grapes:

These are Seyval Blanc grapes. They are supposed to be good for eating as well as wine. I tried some--not bad. Some are brown in the picture above, I think because I waited too long before picking them (but I wanted to be sure they were ripe). There are a couple more small bunches as well. Not bad for the second year.

Bad Racoon!

Well, I think it is a racoon. There are some under the deck. And somethings been taking bites of very single tomato, green or starting to ripen. The entire initial tomato set is ruined.

I took the munched tomatoes off and am hoping that another crop will form---and that, in the meantime, the racoons will get bored and find something else to do. But this is frustrating.

Oddly enough, nothing else has been touched. Why?

On the good side of things, there are lots of edamame. This is a productive bean, but I hope I haven't waited too long to pick them.