Observations

If you are reading this and not tiring of my toad stories - I am grateful...

For the last two nights, we have picked up our watering cans and watered the garden beds, fruiting trees, containers, vines and bushes as well as the volunteers that showed up this year. Each night, I have   watered the pumpkins (previously in the corn and squash bed as volunteers and moved to different locations) and a pretty large toad has been cooling himself under one of the pumpkin plants.

I can't help  it - I squeal like a little kid with delight whenever I see the toads in the yard. What we are doing is making a difference! The toad doesn't actually like being watered, so he hops along under the Juniper bush in front of the house until I am done. What I think is actually happening, is that the toad is feeding on bugs in the bed we just recently planted with  corn, beans and squash (and apparently about 6 other volunteer sweet pumpkins that I can't move now) There are also several places in the garden that I put water dishes and fill them when we water each night, and that fill with each rain.

It's very important to me to attract amphibians to the garden, to eat slugs and other pests that may hurt the plants we are growing. We haven't seen a snake yet - but there are lots of toads - or at least I think there are based on the number of holes around the herb spiral and other plants.

Everything is an experiment. With each day that passes, I learn more and more about how to set things up to attract certain predators or pollinators, and watch and wait to see if it works...and so far - it is!

The potatoes are at least a foot above the raised bed and we keep adding soil, to grow more potatoes. Of course, we were watering the new grape vines along the fence and noticed that there are potatoes growing there...which means the potatoes we left (because they were too small) last year have seeded a new bed? So potatoes are perennial?

What I do know is that we really need to forget anything we have read or watched and observe how plants act in our particular garden. With the ridiculous winter we have had - I would not have thought that potatoes, tomatoes, and amaranth would have seeded themselves and grown this spring.

It's all quite amazing and magical! And this little guy is apparently very happy !

Perennials are Growing and Seeds are Sprouting!

When we planted all of our annuals last year, we hoped that everything would survive the winter and come back now, in spring. With the wicked winter and the several feet of snow that covered our (sticks) fruit trees, I wondered how they would do. Most everything looks dead in winter and it's hard to tell what is happening.

It all worked!

Grape vines, kiwi vines, the fruit trees (one apple is flowering already). Jostaberry, Currents, Blueberries and Strawberries all have flowers and are starting fruit. Sea Kale, Sorrel, and Turkish Rocket, Ramps, Horseradish, Mint root and 3 different mints - all are thriving.

Turkish Rocket

Sorrel

Dwarf Comfrey

In our beds, the planted radishes, carrots, potatoes and arugula are already up and growing. In my flower pots, cutting flowers and poppies mixed with marigolds and kale - all coming up. Even the moon flowers and morning glories in a planter are sprouting.

Volunteers? A lone sunflower already 6 inches tall, a random potato in the back corner, and a bed full of what looks like cherry tomatoes and amaranth - where they grew last year. 

We have already found a couple of critters in the garden: a sighting of the first little toad - who may, or may not be living under the dill plant...and a chipmunk in the wood pile. An unusual sight in the city, but welcome because I know each of them serve a purpose in this garden.

Spiders are weaving webs and we work at finishing our plantings. In a couple of weeks, the tomatoes will go into their beds and we are rotating arugula and radishes to keep them growing all summer. Then there is the Corn, Squash and drying bean bed - and I still need to find where I will put the Mammoth Sunflowers this year. These are the kind of decisions I love to make!

We made a change as far as our diet and started buying almost all of our meat and some greens from Mass Local Food. They also offer some plants, so we bought a Raspberry and added it to the garden.

All remains to be seen, but so far, I feel like I am coming alive with each of the plants I find growing of its own accord, and each I plant. Nature is a miraculous system that only needs the right conditions and will thrive endlessly!