GOOD PLANTING WEATHER

We've gone from sunny, 90 degree days to a  cloudy, 70 degree high day today. Crazy weather; but it will be comfortable for planting this afternoon. This bit colder weather should be good for my lettuce and radish seedlings. I was afraid of the lettuce going bitter or bolting with those 90 degree days but so far, so good.

We had a short thunderstorm wend it way through here yesterday afternoon and it brought light rain for ten minutes or so - just enough to give everything a light watering. Every bit helps. With the late spring rains, I finally got a water and electric bill this week that was less that two hundred dollars for the month. That will change next month, but I'm grateful for those late springs rains we've had this month.

Yesterday I just did some weeding, fed my young seedlings on the back porch and pulled a lot of weeds, and pulled out extra borage that was taking over my flower bed.

Today I'll plant some young geraniums, cosmos and cherry pink zinnias in my flower garden. If I can find a small bare spot, I have a few more tomatoes but plant; but that may not happen today. First I have to dig up a bunch of volunteer fennels, weeds, and other things to make room for them.

Tomorrow will be a bit warmer than today and only partly cloudy, so it should be another great planting and gardening day. Hope everyone's garden is doing well!

Garlic scapes removed and raspberry plants taking over the world!

I never seem to plant enough garlic so last year I upped my plantings but now I wish I had left a bit more space for all these tomatoes.  I planted thirteen tomatoes and still have another couple to plant if I could only find the room! One may find itself in my flower bed since at the moment, that's the only good sun spot left.

There's no room for the few sweet potato slips I started. They're now sitting in a couple of little pots with no place to plant. I'm thinking of maybe using my wheel barrow but if I do that, I won't have a wheel barrow to haul my compost and other things,. Decisions, decisions!

There is one possible spot - a small corner in not the sunniest part of my hidden veggie garden, but I have to get out there in the next day or two and clear out the vegetation there. There's some pretty, almost tropical looking, leafy things there which seem to survive the drought, which makes me suspect they're some sort of bulb. So my plan is to be careful digging some of them out and see if I can transplant them outside the veggie garden.

The last couple of days some of my garlic has suddenly produced scapes which I just cut off. I'm hoping in another month or so I'll be able to harvest that garlic and plant some more bush beans and other things in those spots.

It's been in the high 80's and low 90's for a couple of days, so I'm expecting some of my lettuce to bolt and go to seed if this continues.

All my hand watering is done for the day and I was able to harvest some strawberries and pull some weeds before the heat did me in. I'll try to get back out after lunch. I want to harvest some of that lettuce and there are a lot of new, volunteer raspberry plants that need to be dug up and removed and more small starter plants to plant and all the veggies to feed in the next couple of days. And I still have to get those big raspberry plants under control with some wiring fencing. The metal fence stakes are in the ground so it should take me long to get that under control - I hope!. I still read up again on how to recognize old canes so I can remove them! So I will probably put that job off for another day or two till I figure that out!

Fortunately the weather is going to get cooler in the next two days so I'll be able to get longer, morning, garden time. The Rogue Valley here in S. Oregon does get very hot in the summer, so I need to take full advantage of those rare, cooler days.,