Dodging Raindrops

It's been a rainy few days, which is good for the plants, but I'm starting to worry about things being too wet and starting to rot. A little sun would probably go a long way towards some serious growth in the garden. Even still, though, The Peas are looking great. We've got probably 50 little pea plants about this size and we'll need to thin them out before too long. We've been told that peas don't transplant well, but there are some spots in the rows where nothing has come up yet so we're going to try to move some of the little plants from dense areas to open areas to see if any of them take.


Here is the first of three cucumber trellises that I built this week. Some wood, some eye screws, some twine and a coat of polyurethane to protect the wood from the elements. We've got all three built and in place but the rain has prevented us from being able to string up the final two.


Super Chili, Week Three: He keeps getting taller and taller. Pretty soon the tag will be just a small detail in the corner of the photo of the plant instead of the focal point.


The onions have started to poke through. There are 4 or 5 that are about 3 inches tall and a few little guys just barely making their presence known.


We also started building some poor-man's tomato cages out of bamboo stakes and zip-ties. I like the Ultomato Cages that we saw at Home Depot, but they're a little out of our price range. Bamboo stakes are $1.50 for a pack of 6 five footers. We bought 6 packs to get us through the tomatoes and also have some stakes left over for pepper support.


Here's a close-up of one of the cucumber plants. They're looking green and healthy and tall.


The dill is starting to look really good, too. We were worried at first because they looked so scrawny and the lower leaves turned brown a few days after planting, but they're really getting their color back now and seem happy.


A view from the front corner. The cucumber trellises are all in place way back there and the tomato cages are taking shape in the foreground.


The basil is looking strong and vigorous as well. Can't wait to make pesto -- although I had some storebought pesto last night and woke up in the middle of the night with wicked heartburn ...


As predicted, behind the sign the peas are growing. And the sun has bleached most of the color out of the sign.


The view of the trellis from the cucumbers' perspective.


Looking down on the cucumber end of the garden, you can see the two rows of peas running down the length of the garden, and one of the chive plants. The back two trellises will hopefully get strung up tonight if the weather holds out.


The front of the garden. The ten tomato plants run along the top of the photo.


Eventual Restoration Project #1: Garden Bench. This bench was tucked in by the rickety shed. The arms and leg pieces are pretty rusty and the wood is moldy where the paint has flaked off, which is pretty much everywhere. We got the idea to get some new, fresh wood and rebuild this thing. I want to figure out if there's a way to the get all the rust and old paint sand-blasted off of the hardware (arm and leg pieces) so that we can put a nice fresh coat of Rustoleum on there ... because we don't have enough projects already, we needed one more.


Added Bonus Update: Blueberries. The blueberries are starting to turn color. We bought a bunch of hardware and wood at Home Depot and got some free netting from a friend. After the trellises are done the next building project is a blueberry structure to keep the birds out.


And finally, just to add some more color, here's another Iris found elsewhere in the yard this morning.