Garden Update # 2 - Day 22

The past week has seen cooler nights with a few frost warnings and very little rain.  This has led to being attacked by mosquitoes almost every night when watering and to a few stressful nights hoping everything would survive the cooler temperatures.

Despite getting little precipitation, we haven’t had to haul water yet this year and when we do, it will be a much shorter haul than last year.  As it turns out, there are benefits to being neighbourly.  This winter we received an above average amount of snow and Steve plowed our neighbor’s driveway on several occasions.  In turn, they have graciously offered us access to their shallow well and pump should we ever be in need of water.  (They are gardeners too.)





Getting back on topic, despite some cooler nights, the garden has continued to grow at a steady pace.  The zucchini, spinach, and radish are starting to get their “real” leaves; in fact, I even thinned the radishes already. 

My original tomato patch is getting hardier and stronger with each passing day – thank goodness!  The plants that were put in the ground last week look like the originals did a few weeks ago (they look a little pathetic), but I’ll sure they will get hardier like the others.

Tomatoes - 22 days



Tomatoes - 8 days

The peas are growing like weeds, and there are plenty of weeds too!  Yesterday afternoon we put up some chicken wire for the peas to climb and by the end of the day they were already latching on.

 Oh, and the potatoes are finally making an appearance along with the sunflowers.  On Friday the first potato plant broke through the ground and by Sunday all the Norlands were showing.  There has yet to an appearance made by a Yukon Gold but the ground is starting to crack and lift around a few so hopefully it wouldn’t be long before they are all showing.

Norland (red) Potato Plant

As for the sunflowers, they are everywhere!  Last year we planted a row along the north border of the garden and we did the same this year.  I soaked the seeds in warm water for a few hours before planting and they started to emerge within a week – sweet!   (I planted them last Sunday.)  We also have several rogue sunflowers throughout the garden from last year’s flowers.  We will probably try to transplant these once they get bigger.



Sunflower(L) seeded last fall, Sunflower(R) planted a week ago



Now that everything is growing, weeds included, it’s time to dig out the garden tools and start attacking weeding! Oh the fun begins!