Gang aft a-gley

A few weeks ago, I planted broccoli and cabbage plants with the intention of planting more successively over four weeks. It immediately turned cold, snowed, rained, and stayed chilly since then. I was complaining to the boy about my bad timing: "the best laid plans of mice and men." He reminded me that "this isn't the Burns unit." (If you haven't heard that joke, then I guess it's not as funny.) 

As if the weather weren't enough, rabbits ate half of the broccoli. My dad pointed out the rabbit-friendly brush pile near the garden and I couldn't even think of an excuse. They're cute when they aren't munching my plants. We covered the beds with Agribon row covers. It seems to have helped.

I tried to catch up this weekend. After my favorite dad ran the tiller through the big garden for me--half of the adults in the house have injured backs--we planted 16 pounds of Red La Soda potatoes and the first 6 pounds of Yukon Golds. I planted more lettuce and filled in the spinach-free spots in the open-for-now cold frame. Thirty-six more broccoli plants went in, and the other bundle of cabbage--now missing a few plants healthy enough to plant--was planted next to them.

Our Texas Super Sweet onions from Burpee arrived last week, so I prepped the beds for those and stuck them in. I planted three pounds or so of onion sets, too, and more will follow, Weather willing. The 25 strawberry plants (Honeoye--how do you pronounce that?) that went in this week will, I hope, yield some nice berries in few years and make a nice addition to the rhubarb unfurling now.

That's about it. I'm tired and sore, but it's a good kind of labor.

Wascally Wabbit Food

We've never seemed to have much luck growing carrots. Some years we tried and other years we didn't bother, but last year we took what was left of the carrot seed packets, mixed them together and threw them in a bed. It was mostly practice for using our new flame weeder, which we later realized should be used before sowing the beds.

If it hadn't been for Carol, though, we probably wouldn't have had our carrot surprise. While we were on vacation and after I went back to work in August, Carol nurtured those feathery carrot tops and weeded out their competition. They looked pretty healthy, but we got busy, Carol went on to college, and it turned cold when we weren't watching for it. "Leave the carrots," I said. "They never do much anyway."

A few weeks ago, on a rare warm day in early January, we were out in the garden making mental lists of all we had to do, and I walked past what had been the carrot bed. "Wonder what's going on in there," I thought and started digging. Carrots! Lots of them, and although some of them had some rabbit nibbles in them and a few had been worm food, we had enough carrots to share, enough carrots to snack on, and and enough carrots to make a big pot of gorgeous carrot soup. Kirby was even inspired to investigate the potato rows, and he came up with a milk crate full. 

Next year, we're planting lots of carrots. And we're not giving up on them.