As for my garden, we returned from a week+ of vacation this past weekend. Observations...
- To our surprise, we were greeted with several fully ripe bright red strawberries.
- One of the tomato plants is about to bloom, as are many of the marigolds.
- The mulching and laying of cardboard I did seems to be paying off so far. I had less than 5 minutes of weed removal to do after having been away for a week!
- Several of my bean plants germinated during the week.
- The spinach and broccoli in the kids' gardens (where the top 6-8 inches or so of soil is 100% store-bought) is growing gangbusters--far better than that which is in the main garden.
- Nearly all of the seeds that I put in the ground before I left germinated. Only a small handful will need to be re-sown.
- I put up some anti-bird reflective ribbons, and perhaps they're working. None of the bright red strawberries that are showing had a single peck taken out of them, and this morning there were about six birds on the ground in the back--all on the other side of the yard from the garden.
Some current pics...
The squash and zucchini are starting to form, so I sprayed those plants with neem oil and surrounded the ground around them with Repels All. Keep away, groundhogs and squash bugs!!! (There are also white icicle radishes, nasturtiums, marigolds, and garlic planted nearby as companions.)