GoDawgs wrote: ↑Sun Mar 23, 2025 6:52 pm @AdrianaG, welcome to the Junction and come on in to da Dawg Patch, so named because I'm a big U of Georgia fan.

the garden stretcher snookered me into making two more so-called beds

That darned Garden Stretcher! Sneaks in in the night!

AdrianaG wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 4:43 am

GoDawgs wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 5:49 pm

worth1 wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2020 2:27 pm Everything looks really nice.
Some sort of winter critter is eating holes in my cabbage.

With all the rain could it be slugs?

Or little green caterpillars from cabbage moths! One of my plants got decimated overnight!

Slugs are something I'm fortunately not bothered with but those cabbage worms are. So far I've not seen any of the moths yet but the season here is a bit behind what behind @worth1 has. Those tent caterpillars are just as destructive but I think it's a little early here as I haven't seen any webs up in the trees yet. But I have my bT ready to deal with them!

AdrianaG wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 4:48 am

GoDawgs wrote: ↑Sun Mar 23, 2025 6:52 pm But hey, who needs a gym membership when you have a garden, eh?

And good surgeons! Had my second hip replacement last year and 2 spine surgeries which is why the bulk of my growing is in 20” high raised beds!

You with your hips and back and me with my knees! Both have replacements and both have had the originals replaced too. At least the originals lasted about 22 years. Fortunately I can spread my feet far apart and do my weeding and planting bending over. No sitting though as getting back up is a bit difficult. Ya can't keep a determined gardener down!

I love your beds!

Spring is now coming in quickly. Yesterday I noticed that area dogwoods are starting to bloom. Another "Plant when...." thing I read is to plant beet seeds when the dogwoods bloom so after soaking the seed overnight I will plant some tomorrow in another effort to get beets to grow! It just ticks me off that off all the stuff I grow, beets are problematic. Grrrrr! "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!"

The oak trees are putting out what I call dingle dangles, the catkins which are the oaks' "blooms" for future acorns. When they dry up and drop there will be a mat of them on the ground and of course they will fall in your hair. any open drink you are carrying and cling to shoes and pants cuffs.


This is what the shadow of the above tree limbs looks like. It's not showing shade yet but it will soon! Trees in the area are taking on that red tinge as leaf buds swell. It won't be long before there are leaves on the trees changing that red tint to that glorious glowing spring green.


Today I will put finishing touches on a few beds where more stuff will be planted out or sown tomorrow. Three more pepper plant seedlings are up this morning under the lights. Six to go.

GoDawgs wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 7:25 am

AdrianaG wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 4:48 am

GoDawgs wrote: ↑Sun Mar 23, 2025 6:52 pm But hey, who needs a gym membership when you have a garden, eh?

And good surgeons! Had my second hip replacement last year and 2 spine surgeries which is why the bulk of my growing is in 20” high raised beds!

You with your hips and back and me with my knees! Both have replacements and both have had the originals replaced too. At least the originals lasted about 22 years. Fortunately I can spread my feet far apart and do my weeding and planting bending over. No sitting though as getting back up is a bit difficult. Ya can't keep a determined gardener down!

I love your beds!

So you've basically becoming a cyborg. After my brother got both hips replaced I started calling him that.

I actually kinda like the idea of becoming a cyborg. I figure if I had a mechanical arm i could I could add on a power drill and a metric socket wrench to my appendage. It would a lot of trips to the tool shed.

My day is probably coming.....

It was a pretty day yesterday with a high of 76. I got the 15 tomatoes seeded and the second carrot row turned and prepped for planting. The last few cabbage and mustard plants were supposed to get planted late afternoon but the wind got up with gusts to 25! I was afraid the plants would get torn up so into the shed they went for planting today.

I did get four small sweet potatoes planted in a window box to make slips for planting in May. And finally I sowed 7' of beet seed in the eternal hopes that they might grow to maturity. I had read another "plant when..." thing that said to sow beets when the dogwoods bloom. They're starting to bloom around here so one more try!

Here's what our weather looks like through Monday with the the rest of next week looking similar. Spring is definitely here. But I'll believe a forecast of rain when I see it. It's getting pretty dry here!

Yesterday Pickles gave the place it's first official mowing and I took the weedwhacker around all the garden beds, fence line and the fallen pecan. The place looks pretty good without all that winter lawn lettuce! Dandelions, henbit, etc.

Today we'll put the trellis on the one surviving pea bed and that should take about 20 minutes. I planted two beds and each bed has a double row on each side, so 64 row feet per bed. Only about 11 peas came up in one of them. This has never happened before. Maybe that bed got planted a bit too deep? Oh well. Yesterday I transplanted the little orphan pea plants into skips in the other bed and the empty bed will be used for a new-to-me squash since the trellis poles are already there. That was gonna happen anyway after the peas were done but will happen earlier now.

Meanwhile the tomatoes were seeded three days ago and should start popping up any time now.


The peppers were started on the 17th and are all up under the lights. The three eggplants in front of them were started Feb 27 since they're slowbies.


I planted four small and sprouting sweet potatoes in the window box to grow slips. They should be ready to use around May 12 when I'd like to plant that row. Sure saves a lot of money growing your own! The original sweet ('Jewel') was bought at a Sprouts market about six years ago. It's a nematode resistant variety and has done well every year since. This is the box along with a parsley and oregano.


So the early spring garden is officially "in". Other than a few minor this and thats plus some bed prep, the next major planting push will be around April 23-24th when the beans and squash go in. A week or two later it will be okra, corn and watermelon time. But for today, once the pea trellis is up it's Day Off and Sweet 16 time!

Edited to add: Tomatoes, peppers and eggplant too on April 23-24. Will have the buckets for the maters and eggies ready for planting.

Today I planted out the last kohlrabi and that marks the end of early spring planting. Slowly the beds are filling up. This is the south side of the garden. Because of deer munching most beds have netting over them. Snap peas and mustard in the first bed, various cabbages in the next one, broccoli, collards and kale, carrots.


This is the upper part of the north side. Those poles at the top will have some field fencing hung on them for trellising peas planted in those beds.


Later in April the rest of the stuff will be sown or planted out; beans, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash and cucumbers. Then early May the corn, okra, sweet potatoes and watermelon will go in. Once that happens, the waiting begins and if all goes well it will be canning season!

The collards needed cutting and grooming so that happened yesterday and I got a nice mess of them. The kale on the other side of the bed got cut last week. These plants were fall-planted and have overwintered. Also got some more scallions in the next bed to the left.


Now it's time to start getting stuff ready for late April planting. Get the tomato and eggplant buckets ready, put up bean poles, prep the bush bean beds, get cuke trellises up, till the corn area, etc. If it gets done ahead of time then planting all that mess will be a LOT easier!

One thing's for sure: gardeners are never bored! There's always something that needs doing. As my Aunt Lorraine used to say: the person who can't find nothing to do, never did nothing! Weeding and pruning are forever.

I love sunny early mornings in the garden. There's a special light that just makes things look so fresh. These are some turnips and kohlrabi loving the bit of rain they got yesterday to wash off all of the pollen.


This is a better pic of the south side of the garden now that the sun is on it.


Yesterday I noticed a bulge down in the middle of a few of the fall-planted Champion collards and thought maybe they were thinking about bolting. This morning there's no doubt!


And finally, six more tomatoes up this morning! About five more to go. Don't ya just love babies?