This past week has seen temperatures rise into the triple digits on more than one day, and high nineties on most of the rest. I have watered faithfully each morning. Sunday morning, against all moon planting advice, I planted one of my green pepper seedlings. Monday morning I planted the other two.
On Sunday my first group of radishes in the ground by the Patty Pan Squash was overtaking the radishes in the raised beds in size. When I went out to water this morning, they had all disappeared and were replaced by a large gopher mound. The good news is that the other Patty Pan seeds had sprouted. It appears that a cople of nasturtiums are in the process of sprouting, as well. We'll see when morning comes.
Vegetables planted in the two oldest raised beds are still struggling and not growing much. I gave them some more fish emulsion to encourage them. The two weakest zucchini plants are on the right on either side of the wire cage in the middle. The two strongest in this bed are in the corners on the left. You can see the difference in size, though all were planted at the same time. The eggplant sits squarely in the middle of this picture, and it appears no bigger than when I first planted it.
The gophers have rejected my bubble gum and throw it out of the holes. I have put it back and plugged the holes from my end.
When all other things are equal, I try to plant by the moon. My husband is razzing me about this. He's a scientist and thinks it's all based on superstition. Because the people I talk to in nurseries and at farmers market are divided on the issue, I have tried to stay on the safe side. If there's nothing to it, I haven't lost anything. But to humor my husband without risking too much, I decided to plant the remaining three lemon cucumbers in a six-pack tonight (Actually May 22, since I'm writing this after midnight), not a great day for moon planting. These three plants were in dire need of planting, and were already beginning to yellow, so I felt they would gain more by being set into more nutritious soil than they would lose by being planted on the wrong day. Time will tell.
Today my first borage seeds have sprouted and so did a couple of radish seeds. I knew if they are to remain, I would have to protect them from the hungry blue jay (See picture)who has been supervising my planting from the top of the fence. I contrived a way to prop an old screen door over the largest seed bed, and I propped a couple of flat gopher cages over the radishes about to sprout in the raised beds. I'm hoping these measures will insure that we will actually get some radishes this year.
