Growing!

Woke up this morning to a gray, wet, dismal sky.  I took the day off thinking I could get a lot of work done.
At our home in Walkersville, I have a view of the Catoctin Mountains.  They are west of us and we can see the weather coming toward us as fronts usually come west to east.  If you can see the mountains and blue sky, it's fine.  If the mountains are gone, take your umbrella.

Everything is growing very well,  Sugar snap peas, potatoes, Swiss chard, lettuce, strawberries, spinach, beets, onions.   The crimson clover I planted as a cover crop/green manure is beautiful, starting to bloom.  I will turn it into the soil and it will add nitrogen.  Wanted to do that today, but we've had so much rain I would have compacted to soil too much.

POTATOES

SWISS CHARD

LETTUCE

CRIMSON CLOVER

CRIMSON CLOVER

I was able to put more cardboard and paper weed barrier down between the beds.  Also laid mulch on top to keep things in place.  During all this I noticed that I rely on just a couple of tools to do most of my gardening and weeding.  I use a 30 year old Cutco knife as my "go to" gardening tool.  I slice weeds with little damage to the soil.  A pair of shears to cut bags, twine and weeds before they go to seed.  Of course a cushion for my knees and a small hand tool I found a few years ago.

I am going to sit down and design my perennial native garden this week.  I have a 20x20 space to work with and some FREE pavers.  I want to place a walkway inside the garden so I can get in to weed and not compact the soil.  That is the idea with raised beds, you never want to walk on the soil.  Unfortunately, deer don't understand the rules.

FREE!

waiting patiently for a home

deer prints

At least the deer was nice enough to miss the strawberry plants!



I bought a few things to help with bugs in a few weeks.  Dipel is a bacteria that kills only caterpillars, like the ones that eat broccoli and cabbage.  Known at Bt - Bacillus thuringiensis, It won't bother mammals (us) or beneficial insects.  Also picked up diatomaceous earth.  These are microscopic fossils of fresh water diatoms and are razor sharp.  Any bug that walks over it or eats it is killed.  I will buy a mask to use if I choose to use this.   It is not poison, but you obviously don't want this stuff in your lungs.

I started taking pictures of weeds today.  I will label them and put them on my blog in a few weeks.  Up close they are very pretty.  They are just plants in the wrong place for the most part. Except for thistle of course!

I see a few more countries are viewing my blog.  Welcome to Turkey, Germany,  Indonesia and Portugal!

That makes 12!

Thanks for looking,

laura