May 19th Garden Update - Pinwheels Galore!

So after bragging in my last post that I'd figured out how to outsmart the rabbits... the rabbits proved me wrong. Dang it.

They chomped my precious cabbages.

How dare they?!

We'd had a lot of rain, so I guess the Liquid Fence washed away.

I Googled like crazy looking for other rabbit repellent ideas. Best bets seemed to be slices of Ivory Soap left in dishes around the garden , and pinwheels.

The night after the attack I used both, plus sprayed Liquid Fence everywhere. Since then I've been relying on just the pinwheels. I felt weird about chunks of soap possibly getting into the soil, and was getting tired of spraying Liquid Fence every day (plus after the bunnies went to town didn't completely trust it!).

 

They're working so far! The above pic was taken a little more than a week ago. I just took another today, and if I'm not mistaken the cabbages are growing!

A little bigger; Right?

 So yay! There might be hope for the cabbages yet!

Also  - the peas and beets are coming up!

Peas

Beets and onions

Close up of the beet seedlings - just because!

I've gotta say, this is the best luck I've had with beets germinating, like ever. I've been watering them twice a day, and didn't add compost to my soil this year. Time will tell if I actually get a decent beet harvest, but so far they're looking good!

I also added pinwheels near the peas and beets. Can't be too careful! 

Moving on... I tried something new with my carrots this year. I'd read that putting cardboard over your watered carrot bed helps germination. It holds in moisture.

Cardboard over the carrots

I didn't really follow through with it though. You're supposed to check every day or  two and take the covering off at the first sign of life, but we got more rain and I ended up just getting rid of the cardboard and making sure the carrots were well watered.

And today... we have carrot sproutage!

Yay for tiny little carrot seedlings!

Finally, I'm kind of excited because our town's DPW was offering discounted compost bins for residents. Yeah. I think getting excited over that (plus liberal use of pinwheels) may mean I'm turning into a crazy old lady.

Anyhoo,  The Earth Machine usually retails at over $100, and I snagged it for $42. Woot. I thought it might be a tumbler, but it's just a bin. Seems like a nice one though and it gets great reviews. So I'm finally composting! I'm sure this'll be life changing.

Pre-teens make great compost.

First Post of 2016!

I'm back!

First let me say that when I went to check out my blog from last year, I was bummed to find that I somehow stopped blogging in June! 

This year I plan on blogging through the whole gardening season. For reals. I mean it.

On to the garden!

Before actually getting out there and digging in the dirt, I drew myself a little garden plan. 

My vision. Messy - but I think it gets the point across!

And here's the actual garden as it stands today:

So far I've planted carrot seeds  in the little circular bed in the upper left, beets in the front middle section of the big bed on the left,  and cabbages and onions in the back middle section of that bed.
There's also asparagus coming up in the front right bed.

Asparagus!

Onions weren't in my original plan but I went to the nursery to pick up cabbage seedlings and... you how those things go!.

The variety is Alisa Craig, which I've never planted before. According to the tag they're "huge mild onions, yellow skinned." Hoping they actually grow huge for me!  I planted them down the center of my cabbage bed, and  continued them down the center of the area where I planted beets (not pictured yet). Also tucked some into my strawberry bed, just to see what happens.

Alternating green and purple cabbages with onions down the middle.

It's been raining for the past five days, so I haven't finished my spring planting. I still have to plant peas, and have one more pot of onions that need a home. Tomorrow's supposed to be sunny (before it rains again for a few more days!) so I hope to get that all done. *knock on particle board*

When I was looking over some of my old posts I noticed that a big theme was rabbits.

Rabbit in my garden in early April, pre-gardening season

Two years ago they decimated my peas and cabbage. Last year though - not a nibble. I'm convinced it was because I used this:

This stuff works!

Liquid Fence Deer and Rabbit Repellent (next to a super cute watering can I found at Target!).  It's all natural, made mostly from rotten eggs and garlic. It's stinky, but it works. I spray it around the perimeter of my beds and also around the big bush that you can see in the rear of the first pic in this post, where the rabbits seem to emerge. For some reason I've been against the idea of getting a physical fence - so this has been the perfect solution for me. Target carries it. I ordered it online and picked it up in store (which is when I grabbed the watering can!). But if you can't find it there Amazon also has it.

Another theme from previous years failed beet crops. I *think* this may have been because beets don't like too much nitrogen and I was adding cow manure compost to all of my beds every year. TI haven't added composed manure to my beds for a couple seasons.  Instead I just fertilize them with Tomato-Tone or Garden-Tone.

 I swear by that stuff - especially the Tomato-Tone for tomatoes.

Anyhoo... even with the fertilizer the beets fizzled out. So this year I decided to add *this* to the beet bed:

Gurney's Potato Food

It's Gurney's Potato Food, especially formulated for root crops, including beets!

I'm also planning on keeping that bed very watered. Beets need constant steady moisture for good development. Maybe that's been the problem?

 I will win the beet wars this year, mark my words!

No more dead beets allowed!