Garden Friday

Welcome back to Garden Friday!

The garden will soon be full of seeds

and we have a new way to keep them happy!

 This week brought unstable weather.

Once, in the middle of the night, we had three separate tornado warnings.

Scary stuff, but thankfully, we had only minor damage.

It sure wasn't the best day to line-dry clothes!

 In the vegetable garden,

things are slowly coming together.

This is one of the new 3X8 beds

recently planted with Yukon Gold potatoes and onions.

 The potatoes have been popping up sporadically.

More shredded leaves will be added

to top off the bed.

The onions are doing well,

most likely thanks to the 2 1/2 inches of rain we got.

This is my first time growing onions,

and I am so excited to see them doing just fine.

 The other 3X8 bed got weed-wacked this week.

Both of these new beds were sown with cover crop

through the winter.

This second bed will be planted with sweet potato slips

and butternut squash seeds.

While cleaning up the bed, I noticed an abundance of worms.

Something is making them happy down there!

The garlic is looking fabulous,

as only it can.

It will be harvested in a few more weeks.

Although I planted three times as much this year,

it somehow still doesn't seem like enough.

We use it nearly every day.

 A few leek decided to hang around.

I have been waiting for the irrigation project 

to plant most things,

so there isn't much out there.

But that's all about to change...

 The peas shot up after the rain,

and I went ahead and sowed them heavily all along

the arches.  I also seeded marigolds here,

to help with pest control.

The strawberries are looking good in their washtub home.

Prepping the surrounding cardboard with soil

is on my to-do list.

Strawberries run, and so as they grow, they give you more plants!

The sunflowers planted in the pollinator bed are growing quickly.

Yesterday I added dianthus, marigolds, and rudbekia to the bed.

This designated flower bed is designed to attract

the pollinators that help to grow our food.

It also adds so much beauty to the garden.

 Everywhere I've planted seeds,

I'm adding some type of wire to deter critters

from digging up the seeds.

This chicken wire will hopefully keep birds and squirrels

away from the row of sunflower seeds planted here

on the outside of the archway.

 A friend let me have this sweet lil' flower stand

and I knew I wanted it spilling over with gorgeous color.

The seeds have been sown,

so it's just a matter of time.

Once the seeds germinate, they can be freed from their bondage!

The best news is...

(may I have a drumroll, please?).

We think we have finally fixed our leaking drip system.

A dry run (no pun intended) was made yesterday,

and it seems that the leaks have been eliminated.

Today we will go through to add a few more elbows

and retest the system before we bury it underneath the mulch.

By the end of the weekend, we should have an efficient

and time-saving irrigation system run on a timer.

Game Changer!

It's been a busy week,

and with the onset of warmer temperatures,

it will most likely get even busier.

But time flies when I'm in the garden,

and the world just kind of fades away.

Every moment is a gift.