Yah, more rain!

Lengthy absence caused by vacations & spending too much time on computer at work!
My vegetable garden experienced a sudden growth spurt this past weekend, over the 4th of July. Returning from a three-day absence, it was surprising to see how so much growth had occurred over such a short time. Squash tendrils are beginning to snake through the garden, peas are nearly ready to pick, and more & more spinach is ready to harvest. Radishes will soon be ready, as will the greens I planted not long ago. The cabbage worms haven't found my cabbage yet this year which I'm marveling at - by this time they've always been chewing away for some time. Weeds aren't out of the ordinary so far even though we've had a bit of rain.
My raspberry plants in the north part of the backyard are steadily growing taller and will need to be trellised soon.
The milkweeds in the "shrub garden" are expanding their range and may need to be reined in a bit - maybe next year.
Tomatillos are my experiment this year, never having grown them before. The two plants that survived the seedling stage are doing better than my tomato plants.
Our nighttime temperatures this summer so far have seldom gotten out of the 40's, not great for peppers and tomatoes.
Another experiment I'm trying this year is to start batches of spinach & radishes & lettuce later in the growing season to see if I can get a harvest in late autumn, using a small hoop structure to protect them against the cold/frost. It'll be fun to see how that goes!

Three adolescent fox, not two

I got to see the teenage fox pups this AM, yippee! Caddy and I went for a walk and, while strolling through the Vet's Center, what did we see but THREE of them! Two of them are in photo, one's a little hard to see. Mom was nowhere in sight - maybe she was taking a break this Mother's Day!
Such a treat.
I transplanted the last of my raspberry plants this morning into their new bed. Feels hot outside. Wind, as usual, is not letting up much.
The pollinators are buzzing around the blooming Golden Currant.

Cool spring continues

Two fox pups, nearly adult, were seen by B. last night on his walk through the Veteran's Center. It's surprising that this is the first time one of us has seen them this spring; I attribute that to us not doing the customary dog walks due to Caddy's absence at "doggie day care" in Salt Lake City for an extended time.

Spring continues its slow progress. Nearly everything that's still alive after winter is showing signs of growth. Aspens are beginning to leaf out; lilacs have finished leafing out and are now preparing to flower. Pasqueflowers are nearly through blooming. Rabbitbrush is beginning to green up, and chokecherry shrubs are leafing out. Nanking cherry shrubs are beginning to bud out--they're nearly one of my favorite spring shrubs due to the small, white & pink blooms. Raspberry canes are popping out of the ground. Catmint (nepeta) is mounding up & enlarging.
I've started seeds for various tomatoes & peppers, cosmos, marigolds, cabbage, parsley, lavender, Fiesta del Sol sunflower, bergamot, hyssop, and borage.

We're still experiencing windy afternoons, some worse than others.

I haven't compared this spring's temperatures to the past several years, but this spring strikes me as cooler than past ones. We are ahead in precipitation.

Harvest & storage of carrots

Last year I dug a shallow hole out in the dirt sunroom floor in which to store some carrots. It bore no resemblance to a root cellar, though that was what I was striving for. What a joke. This year I'm trying something else. My Organic Gardening Encyclopedia (Rodale Press) recommends storing carrots in bins or boxes, and layering them in peat moss, then covering with straw. So I'm trying that. I haven't harvested all my carrots & onions yet, but the carrots I've dug up so far are going in the bin. Then I'll either store it in the cold spare room inside the house, or keep it out in the garage. As for the onions - since I opted to grow Walla Wallas, and they're not a great storing variety, I've been giving some away. The additional 20-30 I have I'll try to use up, or will chop them up and dehydrate.

I haven't come across the monarch chrysalises yet; I assume they've gone to that stage since the caterpillars disappeared a few weeks ago. Guess they could have been munched by a bird.

I was getting intermittent raspberries through last weekend, but no more.

HUGE ripe raspberry

I planted everbearing raspberries in a new location last year, and decided they really liked their location, as the canes grew at least three feet over the summer. A couple of the canes are bowed nearly to the ground with the weight of berries. I was out in the vicinity of the patch this evening picking up the ever-present dog poop, and noticed a huge red raspberry, ripe for the taking! This is the biggest one I've gotten off any of my raspberry plants. I don't know if the remaining berries will ripen before frost hits.
High Country Gardens is now offering various fruit plants for sale and claim theirs will produce before frost.

Thinning in the garden

I don't necessarily enjoy thinning, but tonight, after being gone for three weeks, thinning was essential - due to lack of time I was only able to thin some of the carrots, beets, and radishes; over the next couple of days I'll have to hit all of the other stuff (greens, lettuce, more carrots, more beets, beans, more other stuff).
When we returned from vacation a couple days ago, Caddy-dog found the sugar snap peas which she was able to grab through the fence that surrounds the vegetable garden. They're now history, as she was able to get inside the garden, underneath my row covers, and totally chew up and de-pea all of the vines. I have no idea how she got under the row covers. Little buttface.
The hummingbirds are thrilled we're back to refill all of the feeders; they're being very territorial and noisy in their own little way. I have little raspberries on some of my canes. The bumblebees are out on the nepeta (catmint) in force.
Ahhh, garden life goes on . . .

Excess enthusiasm causes irrigation line holes

After two weeks of exhausting work-related travel, I eagerly headed outside yesterday to plant some raspberry canes that had arrived by mail a week ago. They were overdue to be planted, that's for sure. I ordinarily use a pulaski-like hand tool (see photo) for my digging work here, because, unlike WI, an ordinary garden hoe would break in less than five minutes with this hard dirt. The difference between the tool in the image & a Pulaski is the pointy end, which replaces the axe portion of the Pulaski.
Irrigation lines are the underground tubing that delivers water to the sprinkler heads scattered throughout the yard. Many homes in this part of the country have automatic irrigation systems due to the need to water to keep turf reasonably green. Annual precipitation in the San Luis Valley is only 7 inches.

Since I've had problems NOT missing irrigation lines before, I thought I'd learned a lesson, and have tried to be careful when using the tool . But the irrigation line that I hit yesterday was a mere 6" below the surface - way too shallow! The puncture holes are visible in the black tubing in the image - there are two of them right next to one another. The ruler is there so that I could figure out what size of connecter to buy to replace the damaged segment of tubing. (Since this has happened three times before in summer of 2007, I'm somewhat familiar with the repair process .....)

So I had to trek into town to visit my favorite True Value hardware store (favorite because of all the connecters I've bought there before....). The parts needed to repair puncture holes are shown - the flash drive is shown for scale. The only additional tool that's necessary is a hacksaw to cut the piece of damaged tubing out. Of course, this means that the hole in the ground needs to be enlarged to accommodate the hacksaw. The process of planting my raspberries, which I could have completed with ease yesterday, will now be extended into a good part of today. *^&$%@!#(%

Snow has mostly melted

These are my allium bulbs that have come up over the past couple of weeks - two days ago this is what they looked like sitting in the snow from the storm that swept through. 95% of the snow is now gone, and with the temperatures predicted over the next few days we'll have none left in a short time.
My onion bulblets look good - I did cover them w/ some Reemay based on the advice an anonymous poster submitted.
Indoors, my tomatoes and peppers are doing great, and now I'm soon going to be transplanting basil, cabbage, brusselsprouts, and broccoli seedlings.
Some raspberry canes have arrived in the mail, and now I need to prepare the bed for them. I have several varieties that I've planted over the past three years, but I've had little success with them. Where I planted them is an area I did not have a soil test run on, so I don't know if it's the soil quality, too many hours of hot & pounding sun, wrong raspberry variety, or something else.