Something New Every Year. . . .

"When the student is ready, the master appears." ~Buddhist Proverb

I learn something new every year that I garden. Mother Nature tends to casually send a lesson my way as soon as I employee my hand with soil, water and seed.

I spent the majority of the winter planning the layout of what would become my largest vegetable garden(s) to date. While snow covered the garden site I carefully mapped out a companion gardening technique that seemed reasonable. When it came time to finally plant I started by putting in spinach seed followed by two varieties of lettuce seed. I admired my work and went in for the night. Hours later the winds picked up as New York started to feel some of the distant effects of the southern storms and eventually my infant garden was being pounded by sheets of rain.

Historically in April my little corner of the Earth gets about 3.5 inches of rain. This year we got just under 9 inches. I never really noticed the slight slant of my lawn until it became a source of running water during the storms. As the tiny lettuce seeds where flushed across the garden I realized it was 1 point Mother Nature, 0 for me.

Luckily I had decided that this year I was going to stagger my plantings so that I was able to have vegetables over a longer period of time rather than being forced to eat salad three times a day to keep up with the produce. So today I went out and planted the remaining seed. I have my fingers crossed, hopefully the showers have passed for the most part.

In the mean time we have continue to work steadily trying to get all the plants in before May 12th or so. Tonight my oldest daughter and I put the chard in. We also have planted four varieties of potato, including Adirondack Blue and also Adirondack Red. We spread the red cabbage among two garden sites and added another round of broccoli to replace the Romanesca Broccoli that did not survive the storms, maybe that actually makes the score 2-0?

With a focus on the long term we have finally started a rhubarb patch and bought a few canes of black raspberries. At the end of the day I would have to say that things are moving along nicely. I just have to remember who is really in charge.