Harvest Monday for April 16th, 2012.

We had no harvests this week, but we were taking care of items like putting up the fencing for the beans to grow on and a few other things.

It seems like this is the time for a lot of vegetables to start bolting. I took a few pics to share with you on how things are growing for us.

The buttercrunch lettuce is well on it's way to producing some seed for next year's crop.





The Swiss chard surprised me when it started bolting. I hadn't seen it do that before since we usually pulled out the old plants to make room for the new ones..

They really get tall compared to what they usually look like.

They still have that pretty red stalk to brighten up the garden.

Even the green onions have begun to develop seed heads. They look like long green candles with green flames on them.

My Glenora grapes have clusters on them already. They don't even have many leaves right now, but that isn't stopping the grapes.

That concludes this short post on our garden's status. I hope everyone is having a wonderful time preparing their garden!

Have a wonderful vegetable gardening day!
Veggie PAK

Harvest Monday for April 9th, 2012.

It was slim pickin's for this week's harvest, but we were able to pick one and three quarter pounds of Swiss Chard!

Now for an unusual problem I'm having this year.

It would appear that some type of critter is wreaking havoc in my garden. I have dozens of holes dug into the soil all over the garden!

Some are elongated like this one...

...and some are just round like ALL OF THESE!

The crazy thing is... there are no footprints in the soft soil surrounding the main holes! No trails through the garden from one hole to another. Nothing! The other thing that stumps me is that these are dug during the night.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this situation? I'm getting ready to set out my traps to catch this midnight marauder, so any info on what may be causing it would be greatly appreciated. I'm thinking raccoon or opossum, but these are so large they would have to leave some type of trail through the soft soil. The same goes for a skunk. We live in a large metropolitan city, so I'm really at a loss for what is causing this.  If it were rats, there would be other evidence of their presence. I wonder if toads would be this extreme while digging their homes? Also, all the holes are approximately the same depth.

Any thoughts you would like to share on this matter would be appreciated.

P.S. It isn't Molly either!

Be sure to visit DaphnesDandelions for more exciting gardening experiences in a northern growing zone

Thanks for visiting, and have a great vegetable gardening day!
Veggie PAK

Harvest Monday for April 2nd, 2012.

Happy Harvest Monday to everyone!

I'm still working on getting our garden to the point of where it is all set with the summer vegetables. This week I was able to prepare the bed for the Jersey Giant asparagus that I had been wanting for quite a while. Now I have sixteen crowns planted in the trench, and I'm just waiting for them to sprout through so I can cover them each time until the trench is filled. The crowns are two years old, so I have to wait until next year to be able to harvest a few of them. The year after next is when they should begin being very productive.

This week we were able to pick some more scallions that grew from the bulbs of the store-bought green onions that I planted last fall. These weighed in at two ounces.

I picked twelve ounces of sorrel from the plants that I have growing in a half-barrel.

The biggest harvest for us this week was two pounds five ounces of Rainbow Swiss chard.





Squirrels have been a real problem so far this year. I needed some way to help reduce the damage they do to my garden.

My solution is...

MOLLY!

She is a nine week old labrador and golden retriever mix. The grandkids and all of us love her already, which isn't hard to do! Hopefully she will serve as a deterrent for the squirrel problem.

By the way, I'm still waiting for the giant marconi peppers to show some green on the stalks. In the meantime, I bought fifteen fresh plants so I'll have my peppers either way.

Be sure to visit DaphnesDandelions for more exciting vegetable gardening experiences in a northern growing zone.
That completes this week's report.

Have a great vegetable gardening day!

Veggie PAK