Practice what you preach

In between raindrops I got some work done on this Memorial Day weekend.  I used those snatches of time that would have seemed not worth the effort to accomplish quite a bit in my gardens.  
I put about an hour in with the vegetable patch yesterday.  My onions and leeks were needing weeding so I got down to it and it was done before I knew it.  I still felt like I had something in me, so I weeded the pea rows and the other small patch of miscellaneous plants.  My onion patch is about five foot by nine foot.  I have to step into rows to reach those last weeds, but I tilled with my Cobra head cultivator to loosen the compaction I left.  I also added the soil mound around the leeks to start the blanching process of the stems.  No light reaching the stems equals white stemmed leeks which are the culinary preference.  Or so I'm told.  I followed my own advice in my last blog of using those small windows to weed a small area.  It ended up being all the vegetables I have planted, but it did not take me that long.

 The spinach patch is also coming along nicely.  I put in three circles of seeds in what is about a square foot area for each.  The cool weather has been kind to this crop.  I do not harvest the whole plant, but snip off the outside leaves.  The growing center is left so the plants can continue to produce.  I pulled a full gallon bucket of leaves which I had to keep gently pushing down as I picked.  This is about two meals for my husband and I.

I still had some energy left in me and a tool in hand.  I used my point tipped hoe to pull in the piles of reserved soil around my potato plants.  I broke up the clods with the hoe and was able to use the tip to push the soil in between the individual plants.  I will probably take a broom down next time to sweep the soil up off of the weed barrier fabric on to the soil mounds to use the rest of the soil.  I will start using straw around the plants to keep mounding from that point.  I harvested some radishes which thinned the row and enjoyed those with a beer when I got back up to the house.  In one hour, I accomplished quite a bit.
I also had the opportunity to drive over to my favorite garden center, Luxembourg Gardens, to find a few things to put into my pots around the patio.  It was raining pretty good at the time, but I had worn a rain coat and didn't mind.  I wasn't alone. There were plenty of other dedicated gardeners who felt that shopping on a rainy day beat a sunny day with crowds.  Only one item was out when I arrived so I will have to make a trip back to get that one more thing...yeah just one more thing...