Not much better here. I have finally put some annuals into the wet hard ground the last few days. It was really hot Tuesday but I think I suffered more than the plants!Yesterday they got blown to smithereens, today they got fried in the sun(lots of white leaves when I got home) and tonight it's supposed to be down to 5C. What season is this anyways?

This morning I got out into the garden and did a good 3 hours. It was 21C or about 70F. The rain clouds have moved in with a cold front. My indoor temperature dropped enough I have just closed the windows down to a couple of inches (like my fresh air) and have just banked up my wood stove. Geesh.

Not to mention I'm still keeping many seedlings huddled together outside to toughen up some more before separating them to plant out. I've done some hardier plants but without real summer temperatures and sun the rate of growth is definitely stunted.

I've had my lunch break - going to finish a couple of things outside then I'm coming inside to switch gears. Taking advantage of this yuccy weather to do some sorting and organizing. Not in the mood to keep junk, excellent mood to toss stuff. Why waste a good mood on pouting, right?

Swontgirl - how are your annuals now? Any left? I'm not meaning to be funny - many of my transplants have suffered similar fate but are still hanging on.

Okay - outside to rinse out cell packs and containers I've moved the plants out of. Then indoors to tackle "stuff" so I at least have a feeling of accomplishment.

Hang in there everyone!
Cheers,
Peggy

ohhhhhhh so it's normal that most of the things I planted from seed seem to be coming up s-l-o-w-l-y, right? It seems all these little babies poked their heads out and then stayed there.

Hi Peggy,
The weirdness continues here. Yesterday morning we had one doozy of a storm with lots of thunder and lightning for about 2 hours. The wind blew really hard for about 20 minutes. I heard some places had hail but we only heard a few at the beginning of the storm. That is the second time we have just missed hail. I still have some annuals to put in. I was afraid it was too cool for the impatiens but will try to get them in the "once again hard wet ground" tomorrow. I have been busy with my Mom having surgery since Friday. That was a beautiful day of course and I wasn't here to take advantage of it!
The annuals I have in are okay. I don't know if they are thriving but they are still aive. Certainly not hurting for moisture!
We have a farm and my husband finally finished our seeding on Friday. He cut hay today so I hope any rain misses us for a few days! Yeah right!
I keep hearing about this hot dry summer but no sign of it yet!
Want to come and throw out my junk?
Debbie

Spellbound, my stuff I planted from seed are just starting to emerge the last few days because of the sun and warmer temps - still below normal for this time of year but enough for the seedlings to start outdoors.

Debbie, DH's family are in Bowmanville just outside of Oshawa - they experienced that same 2 hour mad storm - no hail either but it was wicked to say the least. Horrid weather. I take it then that your seeding for this year on the farm is behind schedule? Not at all funny. We've seen farmers in this area just seeding now too. Not a great year globally for farming. Our friends in Scotland will be feeling the pinch in food prices - southern England is in a serious drought along with France, Spain. There's no moderate weather this spring. Sure hope things improve. Environment Canada has predicted a hot summer for Ontario. I hope they are wrong to some degree.

On a lighter note, where I've planted a new veggie bed just down from the house on a patch of field I had scraped back our doe in the area (I call her Bambietta) was curious - where's all the grass? You could follow her prints all over the corn, bush beans etc that were just planted. Almost comical when I think about it. Can you say - get the bloody deer netting up? Behind on that too. Because of our local raccoon (we call him Charlie) our garbage can has been moved into our cool utility room for the summer with all our recycling stuff. It's amazing the antics they get up to when wanting the top off a garbage can. We had everything so tied down, Charlie got the garbage can on it's side, hung onto the lid and literally was bouncing/jumping up and down on the side of it to get at the garbage. It was funny to watch at first. Not so funny when he succeeded. Don't need to entice the little guy to hang around so the garbage is indoors for the summer. And I should mention we have a rabbit that hops around. So far not interested in any gardening - there is so much lush stuff around our acreage. It's mixed forest, a few remaining old farm fields, some wet areas and a pond/linked in water shed to the lakes around here(Bob's Lake). For now there's plenty of food available. If the summer gets hot like they say, getting my caging up and fencing around my gardens will become critical. It's all new, this is our first summer here.

So there are many challenges ahead if we can just get the weather to cooperate some more.

Right now I have planted onion bulbs doing extremely well, chives, mint. Coming up from seeds are cabbage, carrots, beets, squash, sunflowers, california poppies, maltese cross, nasturtium, amaranthus ponytails. Transplants I have planted are: tomato, celery, parsley, lavender, jacob's ladder, stevia, gaillardia goblin, rosemary, german camomile, blue false indigo, echinacea, lupines, calendula and alaskan shasta daisy. And I have more annual seeds to plant. We'll see how that goes. Al new, virgin gardens, with all new exposed weed seeds.................

What's showing in your garden?

Cheers,
Peggy

Peggy et al,
Our seeding is quite behind but we will survive. We have a dairy farm and our corn is just for sileage. We won't be waiting it out in the fall for it make dry grain. Our neighbors are cash croppers and they are never going to get their beans planted. But then they had an amazing year last year so I don't feel too bad for them. Last year we were done planting corn in April. It is hard to believe one year can be so different from the next.
It sounds like you will have quite an adventure at your new place- lots to learn I am sure. We have deer at the back of our farm but they have never come up to the front where our buildings are. They cross back there from one bush to the next and can always find something to eat. I am glad as I have heard such horror stories about them. I grow daylilies and have seedlings so I am glad they haven't found them.
I don't grow many vegetables any more. When it comes time to harvest them and can them I am usually glued to the tractor baling hay or straw somewhere. There is no point going to all that work to see everything go to waste. My husband grows some tomatoes and we have strawberries and raspberries which I can make time for. Other than that I try to keep all of my flower beds weeded, cut grass,do some daylily hybridizing and enjoy the show! The season is much too short as far as I am concerned. We are almost at the longest day of the year and what have I accomplished?
Have a good day,
Debbie