Planting day

Thursday was an absolutely perfect spring day - not a cloud in the sky, a mild breeze, high of 70 F, green everywhere and no bugs. They just don't make them much better than that.  It was also a day to get most of the warm weather crops planted or seeded, and that's what I did.  Today I'm a little sore.  It was a long day.

Brassica bed # 2 was planted with a set of brassicas - Green Magic broccoli, Gonzalez cabbage, Kolibri and Grand Duke kohlrabi, and Snow Crown cauliflower.  This bed was also planted with cucumber along the trellis, this year Diva and Calypso.  I'm not planting as many Calypso plants as last year, just three.  There are still jars of pickles from last year when I was inundated with pickling cukes.  This bed was covered with a layer of shredded leaf mold so weeds were not a problem.  I put the leaves around the potato plants, raked the bed level and set in the plants.

 I also seeded two rows of Provider beans at one end of this bed.  There's still room for one last set of cole crops in a few weeks.

On to the 'greenhouse' bed.  This bed gets overwintered spinach, now gone.  The spinach was a real disappointment this year.  There's still a row of spring-planted Reflect spinach which might just head up before hot weather.  How about that dill?  This is volunteer dill, originally from a Burpee's hybrid dill which is bred for compactness.  The first year it volunteered it was long and leggy, now it is incredibly compact and thick.  Hybrids never reproduce true.  The okra was planted close to the dill because they will be there long after the dill is out.

 The triangle has three parsley plants.  I'll sow some cilantro in there but want to time it so it's ready for salsa.   The other end was seeded with Cocozelle summer squash.

On to the Solanacae bed.  The tomatoes were planted on Tuesday.  Eight pepper plants went in on Thursday - Serrano, Jalapeno, Ancho, Jimmy Nardello and Mama Mia Giallo.  I left volunteer dill where it had enough space from the peppers and tomatoes. The Giallo pepper is my new favorite large sweet pepper, it's really good for grilling.  I haven't pulled up the field peas yet, and the eggplant and basil will go in tomorrow.

The winter squash was seeded in the bare spots in the cover crop - one Teksukabotu, four Metro Butternut, and two Gold Nugget.   Pole beans - Fortex and Kentucky Blue - were sown under the trellis in the left of the photo.

I'm not so infatuated with the red-winged blackbirds now.  They seem to be taking over and presume that this is their place now.  When I go outside there's usually a blackbird that sits in a nearby tree and sasses me constantly.  Although I haven't been buzzed yet they get really agitated when I go to the pond's edge near the cattails, probably near a nest.  They hate snakes, and I find very small decapitated snakes now and again.  I found these two yesterday, both about the size of a large earthworm.  One is a copperhead, a poisonous snake, and this is the northern end of their range.  It's the first one I've seen here.