Progress!

We picked our first strawberry last weekend!!!  To try and thwart the animals that get to my berries every year before me, I decided to rig up some special netting which involved two of my favorite things - rebar and sledgehammers (I only kind of wish I was kidding).  We shall see how this works....
The arugula is coming along best of everything as you can see in our photos but we've also got beets, kohlrabi, peas, red ruffled eggplant, tomatoes, nasturtiums, green beans, and cucumbers coming along nicely.  The lettuces, herbs, strawflowers, zinnias, 3 varieties of the carrots we are trying, pepper (yes only one - I had two transplants and one died and the other one is on the edge), chard, and the spinach are struggling.  Some have at least sprouted but they are really lagging compared to other years.  The cucumbers had really low germination rates but we got 2 and that's what I was shooting for.  It's better than I can say for the basil and other herbs (most of which don't seem to be coming up at all).  The hops and grapes are coming on strong and we got a persimmon tree from Jacob's brother and his brother's girlfriend for Christmas that is happily growing.  Unfortunately, we are still trying to find a permanent home in our small yard.  We've got two options and the "call before you dig" folks have been called in preparation!  Pictures will follow!
I also braved the raspberry/blackberry patch a week or so ago and you can see the before and after shots below of the freshly weeded bushes.  My arms were COVERED in scratches, but it's sooo worth it!

Planting Sunday

Today, we got a majority of the warm weather seeds in the ground and caught up on some weeding and pruning.  In the satellite garden bed, we went through and did some weeding.  The carrots, peas, and spinach are definitely growing but we have yet to spot the arugula, kohlrabi, and beets.  At the house, we planted in the raised beds.   Bed 1 has a 12 ft row of Zinnias, 6 ft row of Red Ruffled Eggplant, and a 6ft row of Strawflowers.  Bed 2 is Chard (a few different varieties I think - the seed packets opened up and got mixed...).  Bed 3 has a row of Cilantro (closest to bed 1), a row of Curly Chervil, and 2 rows of Basil Lettuce Leaf.  Bed 4 is a mix of a few different tomatoes and nasturtiums.  Bed 5 is Bush Bean plants.  Bed 6 is strawberries.  Bed 7 is a row of oregano (closest to bed 5), 2 rows ofThyme, and a row of Italian Oregano.  Bed 8 for the moment is entirely Lettuce Leaf Basil, but I may make some additions.  Bed 9 has a row of Oakleaf lettuce (closest to Bed 7), 2 rows of Red Sails lettuce, and a row of Arugula.  We have 3 5-gallon white buckets that have spearmint seeds.  4 other pots in our main garden area have chive seeds.  4 large pots under our arbor have Kohlrabi seeds that were planted last week.  1 large pot in the front of the house has a mix of lettuce seeds that were planted last week.  2 large pots on the side of the house Japanese cucumber seeds and the 1 smaller pot has a Homemade Pickling Cucumber variety.  We still need to plant some peppers at the satellite site and the few seedlings inside need to be hardened off and transplanted (fingers crossed that works).  We shall see....Also pruned the raspberries and blackberries (the later of which want to take over the planet but were satisfied today to cause substantial pain to me as I cut out the dead pieces from last season).  Ouch!!  Now let's see what grows!!