First Pea Pods!

My first two pea plants have pods on them! Very cool. Things are looking good overall in the garden. The blueberry bush leaves are looking more green than red again. (I don't know whether to attribute that to the coffee grounds or just the plants adapting to the repotting). The tomato seedlings especially are getting more leaves and looking healthier than when I first transplanted them. Exciting all around.

Mint

The chocolate mint was officially lost to the spider mites. I saved a piece of the regular mint plant and repotted it in hopes that it will come back. The battle continues on with the mint julep. I'm actually not sure spider mites are the entire problem. I've spotted a couple bugs that appear to have wings although I haven't seen them fly. Then there are tons of these tiny little green bugs that cling to the stem and leaves. Every couple days I pick more of them off with the scotch tape, but I'm not sure this is a winning battle.

First Pea Flower

I spotted the first flower on one of the pea plants I started inside. The peas I direct sowed into the ground have also popped up.

Not much to report on the other plants. None of the seedlings have died, but they don't look quite as healthy as when they were inside. They're a bit yellow. As for what I've got: two types of tomatoes, eggplant, bell pepper, and broccoli.

I also direct sowed some bush beans and I spotted one of those breaking ground, so those and the peas are giving me hope.

I had a little extra space on the ends too so I sprinkled out the rest of my carrot seeds and stuck in four onions seeds. The onions, some of the carrots, and garlic that overwintered in containers have gotten knocked around a little bit (due to a couple greenhouse collapses) but seem to be doing fine.

Red Blueberry Bush Leaves

I'm concerned about the blueberry bushes I got a couple weeks ago. They looked just fine at the store, but now that I've repotted them and put them outside, most of the leaves have turned red. I don't know what could be causing it. I've tried adding some coffee grounds to the soil to improve the pH, but I haven't seen a change.

Done!

We finished the raised garden bed today! I had previously bought Easy Gardener 7-by-100 foot deer netting (cost: less than $20). We do have deer wandering the neighborhood and I'm not about to lose my vegetables to them (and hopefully also not the squirrels, rabbits, or birds). I opted just to wrap the netting around the bed rather than cover the top because I want the bees to still be able to get in. The netting feels kinda flimsy, but I'm really happy with how easy it was to install and the fact that it is pretty much invisible. Eric attached it to the posts with little horseshoe tacks, leaving one side open. On that side, there are nails so I can hook the netting over them to keep the bed enclosed and easily unhook it when I want to get in.

As you can see in the photo, I laid 1x1 foot stepping stones down the center of the bed so I'd have somewhere to walk without stepping on the plants on either side. (The stepping stones were left over from an unfinished project from last summer that is moving back up to the top of my to-do list now that this garden bed is finished).

I hope this wasn't premature, but I went ahead and planted some of the seeds I started. The peas were growing much too fast to have no trellis so they were first in the ground. The "trellis" is just more of the cedar 1x2s I bought to wrap the deer netting around, cut down into stakes and strung with more deer netting. In front of the peas are two lettuce plants that made it through the winter in my greenhouse.

Eric snaked the sprinkler under the netting to water everything. Works great! I think we're both very happy with the result. And glad it's done! Now hopefully everything will grow!

Dirty Work

Picked up two more truck loads of dirt for the raised bed today. We shovelled most in and spread some of the remainder in some of the low places in the yard. It looks good. We did end up digging out out some of the dirt we put in the other week so we could attach 2x4s in a couple spots where the wood was bowing in or out. We should have done that before we put the dirt in, but I think we were in denial and thought perhaps it would magically fix itself. If you're keeping track, the wood and screws cost $101, the stain about $10, and the dirt $27 per truck load.

Attack of the Spider Mites

All three of my mint plants are infested with spider mites. Surprisingly, they don't seem to have spread to the other plants, but they LOVE the mint plants. Armed with some scotch tape, I tried a one-on-one attack this evening. They stick to the tape like a charm, but even with reasonably small plants it turned pretty time-consuming. I'm certain I didn't manage to spot them all either. The little green ones blend right into the leaves and hide in the crooks of the stem. I really don't want to use a commercial bug spray, so I'm remaining optimistic that I can tamp down the infestation by hand, at least on the mint julep. The other mint plant I think might be too far gone and the chocolate mint is such a mess they're hard to spot.