Wee Sprouts of Spring

Baby Rainbow Chard

You may not guess it by their size, but I planted these little rainbow chard seeds over a month ago. Slow and steady wins the race, right? Limited sunshine does mean that things take a little bit longer than usual, but they’re reaching for the sky and coming along.

All my seeds came up but unfortunately something savagely mowed down all my carrots. I pulled up the wintered chard from last year to make some space so I think I’ll try them again… perhaps with some of protection this time.

Cold frame bed with some new room for carrots (round two).

My other raised bed is also full of sweet little seedlings and some wintered garlic, kale and chives. The two dense rows in the centre are spicy mustard greens which are already tasting peppery – I can’t wait until they increase in size & flavour. I will have to thin them out a bit … but this makes me so sad that I haven’t brought myself to do it just yet.

 

Wintered Garlic

Chives beginning to bloom.

I’m fairly certain the greens below on the left are the Salt Spring Seeds Pomegranate Crunch Lettuce. To the right of that are beets, and on the far right, rainbow chard. Some of this will also need to be thinned. Sigh… my least favourite gardening task. I have experimented in the past with saving and replanting the thinned seedlings. I might try a bit of that this year, if I have enough space.

Chloe and her cat grass.

The cats spent some time in the backyard today on their leashes and enjoyed some cat grass. They’re enjoyed it so very much that Alley barfed it up almost immediately after entering the house again.

Alley loves that she is allowed to lie on the outside dining table.

The raspberries are also shooting up and blooming. Soon we’ll have golden raspberries to top frozen yogurt, marking one of my favourite summer milestones.

Raspberry Blossoms

The garden To-Do list:

• Carrots attempt #2 – protect sprouts with a moat of diatomaceous earth?
• Plant some potted tomatoes for the front patio where there is sunshine
• Top the raised beds with a fresh layer of compost
• Top the compost layer with mulch (need to find some leaves!)
• Convince neighbour to trim and top his trees (may require home baked cookies)

– Amy.