Spending Time In The Garden…

Lately, Ed and I have been spending plenty of time in the garden!  In fact, it’s become our ‘home away from home’!  My DVR is now full thanks to all of the time we’ve been spending in the garden.  These days there is no time for television!

One day last week, we had a deer visitor in the garden.  We couldn’t see where she’d eaten anything, just saw her tracks.  We know the deer was a doe because we saw her, at the edge of the woods, heading for the garden, on the same evening we discovered the tracks!

Once we saw the deer tracks, I put my “garden patrol” doll out in the garden.  Here’s a picture of the doll in our garden, last year.  (Boy, in looking at this picture, I realize how much better our garden looks this year, than it did last year!)

I also added some dog hair that I’d clipped from our very shaggy dog, Morris, and a few other things around the perimeter of the garden that will emit our human scent.  (I learned a few deer repelling tricks via the internet!)  So far, we haven’t seen anymore deer tracks.

The unseasonable weather has kept garden pests down to a minimum, so far.  I’m sure that will change as soon as the cool nights leave us for good (if they ever do!).  I’m on the constant lookout for squash bugs, this year, after the buggers wiped out last years crop!  So far, I’ve spotted two.  I’m keeping the squash bushes and cucumber vines coated with garden dust, and inspecting the bushes twice a day!

Our squash are now getting ready, so I cooked enough for the entire family on Mother’s Day.  I will end up giving away squash, this week, because there’s no way we can eat them all!  The beautiful part about making a bountiful crop is sharing.  The cabbage and lettuce plants are ready for harvesting, too, and we’ve been gathering those on a regular basis.

Our garden peas are blooming and there are some pea pods on some of the bushes.  (We recently had to run string to support them.)  The green beans are blooming, too.  There are tomatoes on the vines, but they are still loaded with blossoms.  (I love Miracle Grow!)  Some of the tomato vines are getting so tall, we may have to run a third row of string to support them.

Ed’s had a steady job running string this year!  I’ve lost count of how many balls of twine we’ve used.  Interesting note here:  The sticks that we are using for stakes in our garden once belonged to Ed’s daddy.  They were used for stringing and hanging tobacco so it could be cured in a barn–well over fifty years ago.  We have antique stakes in our garden!

a picture of the garden, taken last week

The far side of the garden (in the right of the photo) is coming along nicely, too.  There are several rows of peas, beans,  and corn, plus some watermelons, okra, and peanuts planted over there.  It’s a never-ending job trying to keep the weeds and grass under control, but we keep trying!

I planted a row of sunflowers/zinnias in the garden, and they’re coming along nicely, too.  I love having a row of blooming flowers out in the garden since I can’t have any in my yard because it’s too shady.  The zinnias are planted in memory of my grandmother, who always planted them in her garden.

That’s about it for today’s gardening update.  If I disappear from time to time, and don’t blog for a day or so, you’ll know where I am– spending time in the garden, probably with a hoe in my hand!