Sunday, May 18, 2008

Cold and wet spring

I haven't been posting much this spring, but dad hasn't volunteered to use his retirement to take over blogging, so I had better start updating again. It's been cold and wet lately, so we haven't gotten much in the ground. In fact, the peppers and tomatoes are getting so big in the greenhouse that we may have to prune them before getting a chance to plant them.
The greenhouse is crowded with other things too: small lettuces, basil and other herbs, zucchini and cucumbers, cabbages, and a few flowers. The bigger lettuces and cabbages have been put outside to conserve space and to keep them from wilting on the sunniest days.Despite the wet weather, a few things are in the ground. Here's the first batch of lettuce planted by hand because the slope is rather steep for the transplanter to run well on. Above it you might make out the blue-green stalks of garlic among the weeds. The plan is to harvest this lettuce as soon as it is ready, because this is the flower garden, and the holes in the plastic will be planted with zinnias, marigolds, and sunflowers once the lettuce is cut.
Dad's put a few more plantings of corn in. The first ones are up several inches now, and you can see that they were planted in rows when you look across those patches--it's not just a few scattered sprouts that might be blades of grass any longer. Here's the corn planter; one of the few pieces of equipment that is John Deere green, since Dad is generally a Case equipment man.One final picture for this post. Can you identify the vegetables growing below? (Hint: click on the image for a larger view.)I'll post the answer in the comments.