Puddles and Carrot-Planting

   The carrots and rutabaga are planted!  I realized on the 19^th that the month of May was getting away from me.  Between the pandemic lockdown and neither of us having worked/ had a consistent schedule for far too long, my sense of time has been quite scrambled.  I zipped outside that afternoon and sowed carrot seed (Jaune Obtus du Doubs, Atomic Red, Cosmic Purple, Scarlet Nantes, and Koral) in one of the raised beds.  Beside it, I planted some Laurentian rutabaga seeds.  They are among this summer’s growing experiments; I have never grown rutabaga before.

    

   The sky was dotted with a few white, puffy clouds and the sun was beaming down while I planted. Once I covered the carrots with burlap (it helps with germination), I came inside to check my email.  Within a half hour, the sky turned dark, thunder and lightning rumbled through, and it started to pour.  It rained for a while, cleared off, and then started again the following morning.  It has more or less been raining since.

   The grass squishes beneath our feet and the garden plots are so saturated, they have puddles in them.  By this point in May, we usually have potatoes planted, at least one garden plot weeded, the pea trellises up and the peas sown.  It has been too wet so far to get the tilling and weeding done on time. 

  In the “bathtub” and in some of the containers behind the house, I transplanted some of the Lacinato kale, Dazzling Blue kale, Five Colour Silverbeet Swiss Chard, Corcade lettuce, and Crisp Mint (a romaine type) lettuce that had been started in milk jug greenhouses.  They are loving the cool, wet weather.

   Most of the winter squash I started indoors on the 16^th under lights has germinated.  I’ll thin them out on the weekend and hope for hot, sunny days starting next week!

   Cole is the earliest variety of tomato I’m growing this year.  Two of the Cole transplants have already put out flowers. 

  

  The asparagus crowns we planted last Spring didn’t make it through the winter.  I suspect they would have preferred to have been planted in-ground instead of in a raised bed.  R bought more (green and purple varieties) and planted them this past week out of town on his father’s land.