4 July 2021 - Recovering from several days of rain and a deer invasion! The vegetable garden mostly escaped being eaten, a couple of pepper plants had their tops nibbled. The Shasta daisies took a big hit, as well as the cut-leaf coneflower and lobelia by the frog pond. Netting fences are back up, and nasty smelling deer repellent has been applied. Will do another spray once everything dries off.  Biggest annoyance is that the trap crop of hostas was completely bypassed! 

25 June 2021 - We're in the lull between spring and summer flowers, waiting for daisies and coneflowers to take over. There are plenty of blooms - roses, rose campion, last of the penstemon, with lilies and phlox peeking up here and there.

30 May 2021 - It feels like March! Cool rainy weather is putting a damper on garden activities. All of the vegetable plants (grown from seed!) were planted last weekend - tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and Borlotti beans. With cold weather in the forecast, we put the row cover up to try and retain some heat. The potted versions went in the greenhouse, turns out we weren't done with it after all. 

The Resource page has some new links to information about Ecological Communities. The woods around us are predominantly Oak and Tulip Trees, so in that community. We'll be looking for the understory plants that are found in this community, and add those to the inventory. Some of those already located are witch hazel, mountain laurel, striped maple, and a number of herbaceous perennials - Jack in the Pulpit, false Solomon's Seal, and Christmas Fern. 

17 Jan 2021

January has entered the dreary period, with a few bright sunny days. Time to start seeds, with a tray of mesclun destined to be microgreens. I've heard "winter sowing" mentioned in a few podcasts, so will try that with some of the beans and peas, and possibly the pink muhly grass.

8 Jan 2021

The woods in winter are beautiful, just enough snow on the ground to highlight the boulders and evergreens. Birds are somewhat active around the bird feeders, and the frogs can be seen moving around the pond, now that we have a heater that can melt the ice. A coyote paid us a visit this morning, most likely looking for squirrels around the bird feeders. 

Seeds came in the mail today! Added to the leftovers from last year, and we will have an abundance of vegetables, if the new vegetable bed gets enough sun. Some of the veg can be grown as microgreens, so those will get started under the grow lights as soon as the soil thaws. The plan (Seed Starting Plans ) is to start with potting soil, to provide nutrients for the plants to grow. The seeds that will be started for transplant will be in the soilless seed starting medium.  The first groups of seedlings will be started on 1 April, we think we started too early last year.