The Spring Garden - 2026

 We're now five days past the middle of April. I had planned to get the garden starts planted around April 15 -17 but am still waiting. Next week, we have  a night or two with lows in the mid 40's. When Accuweather says 47, that's usually about 42 at our house in a valley. I almost always count on 5 degrees lower than the prediction, which is for in town. We also have several chances of hail. I guess I'm a little cautious because last year I lost every plant I had started due to hail but, waiting until there's zero chance of hail probably means no garden! So, I'm REALLY hoping to get things planted by the first of May. Crazy but we've had a couple of days where the high was 90 degrees. Where cilantro was planted last year, the seeds dropped, cilantro sprouted and has already grown and bolted - even while we're having nights that get too cool to plant tomatoes and peppers.

Another weird garden thing . . this pepper is going to get harvested before I ever get the plant out of the temporary cup and into the ground. Funny that it's a jalapeno - the pepper I'm having so much trouble finding in the grocery store. Hope this means I'm going to have a good crop of jalapeno peppers!

Waiting til the cold and hail has ended could mean planting so late that everything burns up in the heat. Gardening can be great and productive for many years, then there can be years of failure - we're pretty much at the mercy of Mother Nature. I really appreciate those farmers who work so hard to provide food to feed our families.

Vince had a couple of places he needed to go yesterday and one of them was Menard's so I went along because I wanted an electric (battery powered) sprayer. I'm tired of pumping to get the pressure needed. I often use the sprayer for fertilizer and I often use the sprayer for Neem oil/water mix. We got this one.

I knew we would want a Ryobi because we have quite a few Ryobi products which means many Ryobi batteries and chargers. This one has two 2 gallon tanks; a battery and a charger. It can be used as a backpack sprayer or carried using the handle. According to the info, 30 tanks full can be sprayed on one battery. That could mean I wouldn't have to change batteries more than once a month. Doubtful . . but maybe. I don't spray every day but some days I go through several tanks of spray - whether it's Neem for bugs and/or fish emulsion for fertilizer.

We've had so much rain and wet days (I am not complaining about the rain - we needed it badly!) but some of the grapes now have rust so I pulled off as many affected leaves as I could and cut back some of the vines that seemed the most affected. I need to get out there one evening in the next few days and spray the grapes with Neem oil/water just as the sun is setting.

I know NOTHING about growing grapes or raspberries. From the raspberries we harvested last year, I'm going to say they require zero attention so that leaves me to learn about grapes. From what I've read, grapes don't really need bees for pollination but do bees come to the grape flowers, whether needed or not? That's why I'm not going to spray Neem until dusk . . do not want to harm the bees.

The grapes are at the calyptra stage so I probably don't have to worry about the bees yet, right? Please correct me if I'm wrong and feel free to give me any advice you want to share. I would love to get enough grape juice to last us a year . . not happening any time soon but maybe some day.

The horseradish is doing great. We love it when it's young and tender. I add it to salads and love to best on tuna salad sandwiches. Other uses: slice, saute and add to omelettes or use in place of lettuce as a wrap.

The raspberries have exceeded my expectations. We planted them down that center row and you can see how many have popped up outside their "bed". I've dug up five or six of the runner plants and moved them to another bed. They look good so I'm hoping they survive and produce next year.

I'm going to stop complaining about this bed where I haven't planted potatoes in four years but every year, it's full of potatoes that have grown from tiny little potatoes that were accidentally left behind. I'm not planting any other potatoes this year. If these grow and produce, then I have what I'm going to consider a perennial bed of potatoes (though I know they are not perennials). I had been trying to make this a second asparagus bed but I'm giving up. The potatoes have won this battle.

I am not a flower gardener. Most anything I grow has either a food or herbal remedy type value but we have four peonies. Our first year here, at the end of the season, I found this peony at a big box store and it looked like it was beyond saving. It was on the $1 rack in the garden center. I had never grown peonies but had always heard how amazing they were so I got it, came home and planted it. The next spring, it had a couple of blooms and they were so pretty and smelled so good that we bought some kind of variety pack that had three more peonies and that's how we ended up with four of them. When I walk out the back door, I can smell them and I love them.

There are other things in the garden that are looking good - onions, rhubarb, garlic is just about to produce scapes.