Genesis 7:11

...on that day the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.

We had a pretty bad rain storm last night...winds in the 15 mph range, with gusts about 25mph. This was fine for the seed potatoes, the onion sets, and the other seeds in the garden. No so much for the pop-up netting.



Here's a photo of the garden from the weekend, the netting is staked down with 9 tent-like stakes that were included. This morning, I saw the netting had disappeared, so I ran out between raindrops and located it. A quick inspection shows it is still mostly intact (a more thorough review will happen in a day or two). Some of the stakes are missing, perhaps buried in the mud, or thrown off.

Thus far, I am not impressed with the stakes, but the netting seems to be OK. Had this been protecting tender transplants, I'd be awfully annoyed. Reviews on the Gardeners Supply Company website mention tears when the product gets wet - I'll withhold judgement for now, though.

Other comments on the early garden:
The boards you see in the photo are my feeble attempt at keeping the mud in the garden and off of our shoes this year. They are scraps of plywood that have been sitting out by the tree nursery beds for a few years now. I don't recall the original intention.

In the upper left, you will see my open-bottomed potato box. This year, that houses the blue fingerling potatoes, while the late crop hugs the fence, and the early crop is on the near side of that pathway.

The next bed coming towards us is the pea bed - a good crop of shell peas is already planted, with some sugar snap peas mixed in. The shell peas do not require stakes, and I am experimenting with allowing the climbing snap peas to use their cousins as support.

In front of that is the brassicas, with the previously mentioned pop up net, and lettuce & spinach sutside the net. I will plant more lettuce & spinach in another 2 weeks or so, to give a longer salad harvest. (Compost has been used to top dress the bed, you can see where the planting ended.)

An empty bed is next - this will be carrots and root crops, when get another nice day.

Teh foreground is the (very large) onion bed, with >300 sets, and about 30 cloves of garlic. No, I have no idea what will be done with all of them yet. Garlic braids would be nice in my pantry, though.

The peppers and tomatoes are a few inches high, still under lamps in my basement (I don't trust the weather here). The other half of the garden will be a large crop of corn and sunflowers, with beans and squash mixed in, if I can manage to get the "three sisters" growing nicely. Tomatoes will be a combination of upside-down plantings (another experiment), about 1/3 of the other part of the garden, and anywhere my compost pile sprouts up.

--Mickey