Spuds

So I valiantly battled a virus-to-sinus-infection one-two punch last week. Finally caved and got some antibiotics. Thank you LORD those things still work. It passed the point when you thought you were going to die and went straight into hoping if you were gonna die, it would be sooner rather than later so you could avoid feeling so miserable. Anywhoo. Now that that is behind me....

I spend the day messing around in the garden. I planted a little over 3 pounds of seed potatoes. And because I just bought a handy dandy new kitchen scale, I am gonna find out how many pounds of potatoes that actually gets me. Some of them are in pots, so it will also be interesting to see how the pot yield differs from the in ground yields. Have I mentioned how much I love harvesting potatoes?

I also transplanted some lettuce, parsley, chard and beets into the garden. What I realize about the start ahead thing is that it takes a LOT of time so separate those little buggers and put them in the ground. Though I think the spacing will definitely be better. I always have a hard time ripping the extras out when I direct seed and things end up too close together. I may sneak out yet and direct seed some spinach and lettuce mix to get things underway.

I have come to the conclusion that the garden is not big enough. I put one and a half beds into potatoes. The other half is probably going to be eggplant/peppers to try to keep the solenaceae family together to make crop rotation easier in future. That leaves me only 2 beds for ALL the other things I want to plant.... I have more onions and leeks and beets and chard and kale and okra and beans and basil and fennel and peppers and squashes and about a million other things.... Looks like I am gonna be doin' some diggin' this summer.

Also last week, in the midst of the funky flu bug, I received and installed the new bees. Woo hoo. The queen is in the house again. (figuratively speaking, of course) I'll go out there again soon and check and make sure that she has been able to get out of the cage and is setting up house there in the box. When I put them in, there was the nice bonus of having a bunch of honey left from last year's bees along with all the comb that they made, so these critters should be miles ahead of the others. Let's hope the weather cooperates and they can take advantage of it....