Veggie Seeds Are in the Ground

Today was another warm sunny day. I spent an hour or so digging quack grass roots out of my Angel Bed this morning. What a job! I'm only about 1/3 of the way around the bed, but it started getting too warm so I went inside for a while, after checking the greenhouse and watering a few plants in there.

This afternoon we took our newly bought vegetable seeds, the onion sets, a pen and pad of paper, and some garden markers out to the garden plot.  The potato hills had already been planted last week by my diligent husband, right after he had rototilled. We only rototill every few years now, since we learned that it is not good for the soil to rototill every year, nor is it really necessary. With the added compost that my husband hauled in there, it is much nicer soil to work with, not as much clay.

I plotted out a few rectangular patches and planned where we were going to put which vegetable. because we have the greenhouse this year, we won't be stuffing the garden full of tomato plants like previous years.... maybe only one or two. I think it would be an interesting experiment to put the same type of tomato plant in 3 different growing locations, (one in a pot on the deck, one in the veg garden and one in the greenhouse) to see which one did the best.  One would think that the greenhouse would be the clear winner, but who knows?!

I started some seeds on April 10 and the seedling are doing well. We transplanted them into bigger pots, some last week and some a few days ago.
I have 3 types which I started from seed:

Black Krim heirloom tomatos
Lemon Boy
Early Girl

We also have a store-bought Super Sensational, which did really well last year and a cherry tomato tumbler.
 We had an ant problem in the soil bin in the greenhouse a few days ago. I guess there's a good reason why you shouldn't put soil into the greenhouse that has been sitting in a pile on the ground. I used a 4 inch green plastic pot as a scoop and scooped out a pail full of ant infested soil. I dumped it outside of the green house  and then started again. Every time I thought that I had them all, there were more coming up.  In the end, my husband bought ant killing powder and sprinkled it on top of the soil in the greenhouse. They were even in the pot with my new rose bush which I had left within easy access.

I really hate to use chemicals to eradicate problems. I always prefer a natural solution if possible, but in this case I wasn't sure what else to do.  Well at least I did save many of them... I'm sure the birds around here will enjoy the meal. :)

back to the vegetable garden:
There are now rows of radish, carrot, beet, spinach, beans and lettuce seeds in the ground. The peas still need to soak until tomorrow and then they will follow suit.
We skipped the swiss chard seeds as we have a dozen or so swiss chard plantlets in the greenhouse. I will be planting the numerous squash babies out after the full moon in early June when all danger of frost is over. I hope to buy a couple of zucchini plantlets, too as none of my zucchini seeds sprouted and I love zucchini!

I have been talked into digging up one of my 3 huge rhubarb plants for the Perennial Swap next weekend.  We do need the room in our small veggie plot, but I hate to dig up a perfectly healthy plant...

After a good soaking from the sprinkler, I hope that the seeds will love their new warm moist bed and will sprout before too long.

Before I go, just want to mention that the leaves started popping out on the trees yesterday and today! I love the fresh green veil on the branches of the trees right now. Mother Nature, you are beautiful! :)

Happy Gardening! :)