In the Garden: May 29

Things are looking green, though the earth is surprisingly dry considering the amount of rain we've been getting, my chives are looking great, and tasting awesome, the Rhubarb is almost ready to pick, and is sending out its crazy looking flower stalk. The wild bergamot that I planted last year, from tiny seedlings, has totally taken off, and is even holding it's own against the quack grass- (which is also growing shamefully well). Earlier this week I gave myself a ridiculous blister while weeding the strawberries, without gloves. The day was perfect, N was playing (mostly) quietly nearby and A was having one of those naps in the stroller where you start watching their chest carefully to reassure yourself that it's still moving, and I just went at the dandelions in the strawberry patch, it was getting pretty serious in there, let me tell you.  The strawberries are thriving now, though it may be a few days before I can get to the quack grass in the herbs due to the blister.

I also need to rescue the rest of the little perennial corner, and this week we're hardening off the tomatoes and melons and peppers and celeriac. We are also working on the mini-hoop house for the cruciferae plants. We have tried and tried to grow nice broccoli and cabbage etc. without chemicals but it just hasn't happened, it's either flea beetles eating the entire plant, or cabbage worms so thick that you can't actually eat the stuff, because after picking them all off, you just can't stomach it. So last year we test ran a sheer fabric hoop house, with the most ramshackle of set-ups for the supports (sticks and masonry cloth), and leftover fabric from curtains hastily sewn up together. It worked amazingly well, we picked bugs once, and then didn't have to touch it for the rest of the season, and they grew so nicely.

This year I've taken it up a notch and sewed four ten foot sections of the fabric covering, with french seams, and a nice wide hem that we can weigh down without the fabric unraveling, and we're working a more sturdy steel frame. So this year we should have forty feet of covered area for the garden, and I can already taste the Kale, and Romanesco Broccoli, and Rapini.