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Got the potatoes, onions and snap peas in the garden Tuesday between bouts of rain. I already had turnip and mustard greens, spinach, leaf lettuce, radishes, bunching onions and beets started in my little 4 by 22 foot raised bed, with the radishes planted between garlic I put in back in November. All of that is coming up now, as are some greens I basically just threw into a part of what was my corn patch last year. I had several packs of old turnip and mustard green seeds left from last year, so I scratched the surface of a little patch of too wet dirt in the old corn patch and just threw the seeds in. Lo and behold they are coming up strongly. I haven't grown greens before, just spinach and Swiss chard, but we do like them. It takes a pretty good pile of greens to make a "mess of greens" when cooked down, so perhaps we'll get enough from my scattered plantings.

A local Ace hardware store already has tomato plants available. I was talking with a clerk about how they'd probably mostly get frost bitten, since it usually makes sense around here in Mid-Missery to wait until after the first of May for tomatoes. She said they kept getting requests for them due to the warm spell we were having. A couple of weeks ago it hit 80. Two days later we had an inch of snow that lasted maybe three hours before melting. I'm planning to start my tomato seeds this weekend, along with some peppers. I checked with the nursery where I buy most of my plants and they said they'd have tomatoes and peppers at a more appropriate time. I'm planning on Black Krim and Park's Whoppers from them, and I'll start some Black and Black cherry tomatoes from seed. Last year we also had some Mountain Fresh that did better than the other varieties during a miserable, hot, dry spell, so I'll look for them again.

Stil to put in at appropriate times: tomatoes, peppers both sweet and hot, yellow and zuchini squash, okra, turnips, various cucumbers and maybe some winter squash. Seems like I'm forgetting something, but it'll come to me.

I got some raspberries and filberts from Miller Nurseries by UPS yesterday. Naturally it's raining and is supposed to rain for the next several days. If it's not coming down tomorrow morning, I'll probably put them in and use lots of dry potting mix and peat moss to mix with the soil so I can bed them in well. I know I'll have to fence the filberts against the deer, but I'm hoping the raspberries can protect themselves, since the deer seem to leave my thorny blackberries alone.

Garden time!

Chuck

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