Saturday, March 21, 2015

Spring Planting

Zucchini and cucumbers

Two-thirds of the garden is in, but only if you count the scraggly remains of the cabbages I planted last fall.  The dog carnage was nearly total, though I did manage to replant a few that weren't thrown halfway across the yard by digging paws.  There is now a nice hardware cloth fence around my beds.  Unfortunately I used all but three of my garden stakes to hold it up.

I would have all my beds finished, except Burpee seems to think I don't know when to plant, and is holding my order until the "appropriate time for your planting zone".  We're close to the Gulf.  I've had to turn on the air conditioner.  I think the danger of frost has passed.



My rosemary survived the winter in spectacular fashion.  For some reason our oak tree doesn't drop its dead leaves until the spring... I'm not sure if it's the clogging infestation of spanish moss, or if it's just a stubborn tree, but believe it or not I raked that yard just last week to add decomposing leaves to the bottoms of my garden beds, and now it's like I never raked at all.  I'm leaving it in with the rosemary to act as a mulch, but I'm going to have to wait until the yard dries out a bit before I hit the rest of it again.  Three days straight of rain, and we were approaching an ark scenario.



Rory, the smooth fox terrier, loves the puddles.  He'll go splashing through them and get confused when the other dogs won't join in the messy fun.  He's gotten huge since we got him last fall.  He was the size of the chihuahua, starving and covered in fleas.  He's now bigger than my daughter's dog; she's some sort of massive corgi-something mix and happens to be the exact same color as Mr. Pickles, the aforementioned chihuahua.


Thanks to a rusting old chain link fence, and dogs who love to chase cats and squirrels, we have a major undertaking coming up, where we're going to have to replace a sizable chunk of our chain link material.  They're like bats... they can squeeze through the smallest fricking opening and go running down the street.  If it wasn't for the nearby train tracks, I might let them roam, but they're just far too close.

I'll update this when the tomato and pepper plants arrive.  I have tried starting my own seeds, but I just have far better luck with purchased plants.  I'm hoping the hardware cloth will also cut down on the number of hookworms I get on my tomatoes... they really did a number last year.

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