For today's post, I'd like to show you a few pictures from my gardens. It's still too early in the spring in the area where I live to start planting seeds for most of the types of food that I grow. This area is zoned 4A. It still gets below freezing at night, and the ground has not warmed up enough yet for most seeds to sprout. I should be able to plant carrot seeds in the next week or 2, and I can plant the potatoes starting in the middle of May. They won't grow much before the ground warms up, but it won't hurt them to plant them now.
As I wrote in a previous post, I started my tomato seeds, and most of the first batch came up. Those plants are mostly about 3 to 4 inches tall now, with a few late starters trying to catch up. I planted the second batch of tomato seeds and they're just starting to come up now. I've been taking the first batch of tomato plants out to the greenhouse during the day so they can get some sunshine. I still have to bring them in the house at night for now. When the night time temperature starts staying in the 40s, I'll start leaving them out in the greenhouse at night.
The garden plots are starting to warm up a bit now, and they're not muddy anymore. This is the big garden at home. I got the pile of shredded leaves from last fall moved to the compost pile. You can see how the railroad wraps around the back of the garden behind the compost pile and out to the back garden gate. To the right of the garden gate is the grape fence.
This is the garden plot along the side of the house. This plot is fairly small, but it's still useful. I'm thinking about planting the tomato plants here this year.
And, of course, the container garden is still a mess. The 4 black pots have to go back into the greenhouse. I took them out last fall to make room for the pond fish tank.
I decided today that it was time to wake up the rototiller from it's winter slumber. It's been sleeping under a tarp in the hidden corner of the yard behind the house.
I got the handles adjusted back into operating position to get it ready to move.
I rolled out of the corner to a place where it's much easier to get it prepared for it's first running of spring.
The motor on it now is from a snowblower, so it has an electric starter. That makes it easier to get it started after it's been sitting for a while. The pull starter works, but it's a lot more effort that way, and my back and shoulder don't appreciate the extra effort...
This is an old Troy Bilt that my dad bought back in 1981. The original motor siezed up a few years back, thus the snowblower motor.
I also took a ride up to the community garden today to look at my plots. I rented 4 plots again this year. I use 3 of them and a friend of mine uses the fourth one.
All 4 of the plots are in a line and the picture shows them all. The first plot closest to the camera is going to be planted with potatoes this year. My friend had sweet corn in this plot last year.
The farthest plot in the line is the other plot that I'll use for potatoes. I had some pumpkins planted there last year. This plot needs more work than the others. I only used part of it last year for the pumpkins, and had the rest of it covered to keep the grass from invading it.
I'll be getting this plot cleaned up soon so that I can get started with planting the potatoes. I'm probably going to have to cut the grass around the plots next week. We've had a couple of days in the low 60sF and the grass is starting to grow.
That's all I have for this post, thanks for checking it out!
