May 13, 1999
My carrots have been coming up, and everything else is doing okay, so far. After the last 4 inch rainstorm we got, the green peas have been trying to fall over, rather than grab the fence I put up, but at least one has grabbed the fence. The beets are doing well, and so are the potatoes and lettuce. I haven't had time to do more on the garden.
I got mad at the onions and pulled them up. The husband followed suit and mowed them up. Although the yard is strong with onion smell, we are happy. Onions never were our thing, and they were growing too well. *G*
I saw a hummingbird a couple of days ago. It was a very large one, with a very bright, orange-red tummy. Haven't seen one since.
May 13, 1999
The garden is doing great! The foot-long green beans are coming up, but slowly. The green peas are all about 6+ inches tall. The beets have been coming up, too. The potatoes are still blooming. We have had another 4 inches of rain since I last updated.
May 2, 1999
Today was another busy-in-the-garden day. Gene tilled about five large bags of leaves into the lower half of the garden. I dug up another row, built a fence for the green peas to climb, planted carrots, and put up two more of the scalloped edgings. I only have 9 more pieces to put up. Five belong on one side and four across the front. Of course, four won't completely close off the front, but they will allow for drainage, since the front end is downhill from the back.
The green peas are doing wonderful, and more of the foot-long green beans are beginning to come on up.
May 1, 1999
Today, I got the beet seeds planted in the third row. I also got one side of the garden completely edged, and have started working on the other side. I have about 1/3 of that side to finish. Then, I also have to run some across the front end, with some screen to hold the dirt in and let the water flow out (I hope).
The potatoes have been blooming for about a week, now. The lettuce is such a bright green! The green peas are all coming up, nicely, and the foot-long green beans are slow, although they are coming up, finally.
April 25, 1999
The green peas are almost all coming up and the foot-long green beans are, too. Everything is doing pretty good, other than the fact that we have received over 5 inches of rain in less than 24 hours. The concrete edging is doing okay, but the old plastic edging around the lower part of the garden (which I haven't got lined out or planted, yet) started washing away earlier today. The yard was about 4-6 inches below rushing water earlier. Thank God the rain has practically stopped. I hope it stays away for a few days!
April 12, 1999
I planted some green peas in the garden the other day, but I only had 7, so I have to buy more. I planted a whole row of foot-long green beans today. I have about half the garden surrounded with the edging, so far.
Over the past few days, I've worked heavily in the garden and now have 5 rows dug up. The first row has the onions and potatoes in it. The second row has lettuce, mustard greens and collards in it. I haven't seen much growth of the mustard or collards, but I have a lot of lettuce coming up. The third row has green peas in it, and so will the fourth row (for now). The fifth row has foot-long green beans in it.
April 4, 1999
I put more edging around the garden today, and we bought more for me to put up.
The lettuce plants are looking great. It looks like the mustard plants are coming up, too, but I have seen no collards coming up, yet.
I got another garden row ready to plant today, but didn't have time to plant anything. Gene gave me a beautiful, yellow petunia, which I put in the potato and onion row. I'm hoping to get the rest of the garden rows ready to plant in the next two to three weeks.
April 3, 1999
We had storms early this morning and throughout much of the day. In-between storms, I looked at my lettuce row and watched as each time I went out, I saw the tiny lettuce plants were larger than the last time.
I got a few more of the scalloped concrete edging pieces put around the garden, today.
March 31, 1999
I got the lettuce row set up today, then I planted the lettuce, mustard greens and collards. I know I'm a bit late, but I'm hoping they will do okay.
The onions are doing great, and I'm seeing little potato plants springing up, too. I used cuttings from potatoes to start them.
The aloe vera has been in the shed all winter, under a heat lamp. A couple of the large, wide leaves at the bottom got burned at the beginning of the winter, but it made it through. About a month ago, the aloe vera decided to sprout a bloom. The bloom stem is about 36 inches tall and the blooming area itself is about one foot tall. The overall plant height (other than the bloom) is about 26 - 28 inches tall.
Today, I finally got to transplant the aloe vera outdoors on the north side of the house in the flower bed, where it usually spends the summers.
March 13, 1999
The garden has been tilled about 4 times (thanks to the husband), and we've added a load of compost to the new area we added on this year.
We've had over 4 inches of rain in the past 24 hours, and now we have snow falling. At this time, we've had over 4 inches of snow, but only about 4 inches of it hasn't melted, yet. The ground temp is around 40 degrees and falling. The above-ground temp is around 30 degrees, with a strong wind out of the north. The snow is supposed to end overnight.
March 7, 1999
I got a few onions and potatoes planted yesterday. I put up the cold frame to protect the row, in case of a freeze. We are expecting rain today.
February 19, 1999
We covered the garden with white/clear plastic to protect it some from all the rain. If we can keep it dry enough, we can till it. We have the outside edge of it lined with bricks to help keep the water out. I know that if it rains very hard, the ground will soak it up, anyway, but since we've done it before, we know it really helps. I uncovered part of the garden today, to help it dry out some.
The ground temp got all the way up to 50 degrees F. before it started dropping again, due to the cooler temps. It's staying around 40 - 42 degrees these past few days. We haven't had a lot of rain, but we've had some heavy sprinkles occasionally.
The crocuses are looking very pretty this year. We've not seen anything more than the greenery on the hyacinths, yet.
February 7, 1999
Sorry I've been away so long. Angelfire changed their web page editor, and I don't like it quite so well, anymore. Also, things have been quite busy around here. I wish I could say that we've been too busy working in the garden. *G*
I've continued to add material to the ComposTumbler, and since we've had such a warm winter so far, it's continued to break it all down. I have petunias coming up in the garden, and crocuses coming up in the tire flower beds. Some of the tulips I haven't seen in a couple of years have decided to pop up this year, although I don't know how well they'll do. Gene has some hyacinths (sp?) coming up in his flower bed around the toad pond.
Well, every time we think it might dry up or freeze up enough to till the garden, it rains again. Right now, the garden looks like a swamp, with most of the vegetation removed. The temps since my last writing have pretty much stayed above freezing. Some days have been as high as the upper 70's. The ground temp was only down to 30 degrees for a few days, then we had a really warm spell, causing the ground temp to jump back up to around 40, and now around 45 degrees. Where's our winter?
January 3, 1999
Temps haven't been back up above 18 degrees today. It was 8 degrees around 7am today. The ground temp has gone down to 30 - 33 degrees, depending on the above ground temp. The wind has been a bit nicer today, though.
Yesterday, after I updated this journal, I spent the majority of the day tearing the fences and the rest of the stuff down in the garden. I was unable to stay out more than about ten minutes each time, due to the cold. One time, I only wore one glove and by the time I got back in (ten minutes later) my un-gloved hand was numb and blue. It took a few minutes to thaw it back out.
January 2, 1999
The temps have been pretty cold for the past week or so. We got down to 9 degrees one night. The wind chill has been in the minus range only once or twice, though. It was continuously below freezing for about 4 or 5 days in a row, which dropped the ground temperature (about a foot down) dramatically.
Today, the temp is 32 degrees, and the wind is blowing pretty hard, putting the wind chill in the minus range again. The ground temperature is holding around 35 degrees, F. We had about one inch of rain last night, which of course froze up.
Gene and I never got to finish clearing the garden so we could till it up. The ground was too wet for too long, then we have had so much freezing weather that the garden area we would be tilling (mostly the top one foot) is frozen solid. If the weather doesn't let up enough for us to clear and till it soon, I will probably be out there with a shovel getting the job done. Anyone who knows me knows that is a good possibility. *G*
I guess I'm going to need a new set of archives for 1999. I would like your feedback on this. Should I wipe out the 1998 archives and just start over? Or should I wipe some out as I go along? Or should I just keep them here for newcomers to see and refer to, and continue to add this year's updates to them? Please e-mail me to let me know what you think.
