June Garden Update

This week I finally was able to say, my garden is planted. I started planting Memorial Day weekend and between the heat, mosquitos and rocks, it took me quite some time to get everything planted. 

This year, I have grown all veggies from seed except for 4 celery plants that I found locally for $1 each from The Roadside Greenhouse near Mikana, WI. I saved seeds from some peppers and beans from my garden last year, otherwise, I purchased my seeds from MI Gardener and The Rusted Garden. I have purchased from large seed companies or big box stores in the past with really bad luck. I had purchased from The Rusted Garden the year prior with success, and found MI Gardener, which I was hoping since MI is next to WI, there would be a better yield than purchasing outside of zone 3/4. 

*Note: Onions and potatoes were purchased from Marketplace Foods in Rice Lake. 

*Note 2: I am not affiliated with any company nor have received any payment or discounts. All opinions are my own. 

The ground here is clay and rock - very difficult to work with, but does improves each year. We burn wood all winter, and add the ash to the garden, along with compost and soil. I did buy a brand new Yardmax tiller this year and that seemed to really make the soil light and fluffy. Also, it dug down deeper and exposed more rocks. When so many holes for plants have large enough rocks that you need to get the spade shovel to remove them, it becomes time-consuming.

I am learning every year what to grow at home and what to purchase from the neighbors. I will never grown sweet corn here until the Jelik's stop growing, along with root veggies that don't perform well in our clay soil.  I do like to experiment with new seeds and ideas. This year, I found these Chantenay carrots from MI Gardener that I thought their stockiness may do well in the clay and rock. Also new this year are turnips and rutabagas. The cabbage, peppers and tomatoes do very well in the garden, but I'm trying more root veggies as we work the soil more each year. 

We do have a variety of wildlife that like to come visit the garden. So far this year, we have seen the mama doe, mama and baby raccoons, and flying squirrels. The turkeys won't be visiting until the fall. We did purchase some fencing this year to help keep these creatures out of the garden, but are still working on getting it put up. I also found some garden statues of raccoons and foxes from an auction that seems to be working as little scarecrows. 

So far the plants are looking healthy and are growing fast. I was a bit worried about the high heat, but we were able to water in the evenings and then it rained and the temperature dropped to more reasonable temps for the newly planted seedlings. Along with the happy healthy plants are fast growing weeds. I do need to get this under control sooner than later! Hopefully the cooler weather stays around this weekend!