We Tried the Perpetual Spinach Last Night

April 06, 2017

We tried the Perpetual Spinach last night and it does indeed taste like spinach. It's slow growing though, so I may plant a Savoy or Iceland type next spring to get plenty of early spinach. If the Perpetual Spinach goes all summer, as advertised, it will be a welcome addition to my future spring plantings. On the downside of the gardening adventure, there is a prediction for a 30° night Saturday. I've got lots to cover up. I use buckets, bowls, cardboard boxes, garbage cans, garbage can lids, cups and horse blankets to protect all the frost sensitive plants..

One morning when I looked down at the garden last year I thought it looked like a garbage dump. One year I had a package of styraphom cups that I used. It was very quick and easy and not messy. You just need to put a rock on top of each one so they don't all blow over to your neighbors..

April 07, 2017

Both the beans and peas came up last night. What a crazy year. I have always planted peas February 2nd and have always been successful. I've always had peas up March 1st. Not this year. I never have beans up until May 1st. Not this year..

Honeydew melon, pumpkins and zucchini all came up too. I've got a lot to cover tomorrow night, but today I thinned the beets. It's time to plant the second planting of beets. I can't believe we got 8 plantings in last year and not a beet went to waste. If we didn't have more cold weather in the forecast I'd plant the second planting of corn too. We got 8 plantings in last year but the last one didn't have time to mature so the horses got the stalks..

April 09, 2017

It got down to 26° last night, but I didn't lose anything in the garden, so it must have been of short duration. That low of a temp can crack the metal of a ball valve left closed, if it lasts overnight. Frozen water exerts a force of 1000 lbs per square inch. Hard to believe. Some of the plastic I used wasn't very thick, and I didn't bank the dirt up around the bucket rims so I feel lucky..

I was disheartened while taking the buckets off the beans because tiny pill bugs fell off of each plant and down into the cracked ground that the sprouts had made by pushing up. They didn't have to cross the diatomaceous earth to hide or to get back to the plant to eat. I watered the row heavily with a watering can repeatedly until the earth filled in the cracks. I hesitate to indulge in repeated applications of diatomaceous earth because I know it kills spiders, and they are a tremendous garden asset..