It is officially “go time” for our seasonal garden. We are currently busy sowing our summer vegetable and flower seeds. We’ve been planting our sunflowers roughly two inches deep to prevent local wildlife from digging them up, and we are already seeing a nice row of sprouts shooting up. Additionally, we’ve put our saved marigold seeds from last year to good use—some were started indoors, and the rest have been sown directly to create beautiful borders for our flower beds.
To deter animals from eating our vegetables and flowers, we have continued our practice of sprinkling cayenne pepper around the garden perimeter. We go through quite a bit of it; our five-pound bottle is nearly empty, as we reapply the powder every few days and after every rainfall. We have noticed a significant reduction in rabbits and groundhogs venturing into the yard since we began using this method a few years ago.
We have prepared Maggie’s Farm using our electric tiller and are now ready to plant. This year, our garden will feature pumpkins, yellow summer squash, and bush beans. Additionally, we are transplanting the tomato seedlings that we started indoors earlier this season.
In addition to the pumpkin seeds sown in “Maggie’s Farm,” we have also planted pumpkin seeds along the retaining wall bordering the driveway. These are growing nicely and are already beginning to show flower buds.
In our “weather garden’ we had some disappointing result from our radishes but we were able to harvest some tender Simpson lettuce. Our garden beans are growing well and are flowering.
