This weekend was a good and productive one. First, I made up our household budget. This was a sorely needed chore that I've been putting off for a long time. Now that it's all organized I am happy. On Sunday I worked in the garden all afternoon. Now there are 4 tilled rows and 2 of them are planted. On the first row we have Bull's Blood beets. There is 100' of beets and they should be ready to pull right as it is time to put in the artichoke transplants in that same row. On the second row we have 25' of red onions, 25' of yellow onions, 25' sweet peas (Lincoln), 20' Lady Finger Carrots, and 5' Red Globe radishes. The peas will give way to the snap beans and the radishes to lettuce. Row 3 and 4 are unplanted right now because I just ran out of time. It will be raining too much this week and likely next weekend to do much more in the garden for now, but I will be working on the fences if the weather allows.

What did you do this weekend?

Yesterday my daughter and I groomed our horses. Mine has a wavy mane and tail that gets little wringlet knots in it and they're very difficult to unwind. But I managed to get them all undone this time. He also has very long hair on his jaw and legs, LOL, he looks like a wooly mammoth. This spring I will begin working with him and riding some, but he'll only be 2 in May and I'd like to give him another full year of growth before I ride him often. We'll get a lot of the ground lessons started, though.

Bobbie Sue and Pooter (the dogs) were busy trying to dig up a mole. Just when Bobbie Sue closed in for the kill, I ran and snatched it up by the scruff of it's neck so I could get a look at him. I've only seen pictures, never seen a real mole before. Boy! They are fiesty little critters! He kept trying to turn around and bite me, and I know he must have been terrified, but I wanted to hold him long enough for the kids to get a look at him, too. Some people think they're ugly and I'm sure most would think I should have killed him, but to me he was cute with his huge front paws and long little nose. And as long as they stay out of my garden, I don't care if they till everywhere else. They can even till in the garden out of season and I'll be happy with it.

Speaking of the garden, I was out there on Saturday. I took down the bean trellis and moved it out of the future perennial garden. The pieces are lying in the future annual garden waiting for their new life. While I was there I noticed all the mole trails and saw that they completely avoided the garlic rows. So I am thinking that I will plant a garlic boundary around the entire garden. That might help with both deer and moles. I hung the bluebird box while I was out there too. I've been seeing them on the roadsides, maybe they are scoping out spring nesting areas. I want a family to move in by my garden this year.

While thinking about a book I am writing, the POV it needs came to me all of a sudden. Going over it in my mind, it is definitely the right one! All the ideas are flowing better now, so I'd better get busy with it.

5-22-07 (Blogger isn't updating the dates properly)

Last weekend was very good gardening weather. I have almost everything planted that I had started, except for a few things i started as seeds over the weekend. It's really almost too late to start seeds, but I figured I'd try anyway. If they don't produce in time, well too bad. But if they do, then so much the better! Here's what all I have in the garden this year:

Tomatoes (beefstake, mortgage lifter, roma, mr. stripey, cherry, and some unknown variety of seeds that i had saved from last year)
Celery (leaf and stalk types)
Bell Peppers (yellow, red, orange, purple and green)
yellow squash
zucchini
snap beans (bush and pole)
sunflowers
okra (texas longhorn)
melons (one lonely little prescott fond blanc seedling, and seeds started for iroquois cantelope)
strawberries (everbearing, kent, and sparkle varieties)
yellow onions
asparagus (first year, no harvest)
sweet basil

If most of these do well, I should have lots of fresh food to eat and sell this year at market.