Garden Update March 28

The garden is finally starting to take off.  We finally got some much needed rain yesterday and overnight last night.  Prior to that it was really really dry.  We brought everything along with sprinklers, but there is nothing like rain water.  My Dad told me one time that 1/2 inch of sprinkler water was equal to 1/4 inch of rain.  Not sure if that's an old farmers adage or what, but it seems to be true!

The potatoes are doing exceptionally well.  The watermellons and squash are also looking good.  We did have one casualty as we had to replant all of our corn.  Most of the seed rotted in the ground.  It certainly wasn't because of too much water.  The seed was some left over silver queen that I had saved from 2009.  This tells me that I A. didn't store properly or B. 3 years is about the life for saving silver queen seed.  I had also saved some from last year which is what we replanted.  We also went in and filled some gaps where some snapbeans didn't come up.  With yesterday's rain, both should have optimal chances for germinating very nicely.

We hope to plant cucumbers and tomatoes and peppers this week.  I am glad that we waited because a wind storm late last week would have totally decimated the tomato plants.  I'm looking forward to getting those started.  We have had puny cucumber crops over the last two years and I have been reading about some ways to remedy that.

The electric fence is still humming along.  Surprisingly it is still on the same battery that we started with 2 weeks ago.  Still no sign of Bambi.  Nothing so much as tracks around the perimeter.  Once everything gets up good I'm sure they will be enticed.  The supermegafence2011 is ready for them.

After a slow start we're looking good.  It's almost time to start cutting grass too.  Busy spring and summer weekends ahead.

Y'all take it easy,

Alex