Recycled materials as cloches to cover seedlings during spring nights

Use strawberry containers for cover as they are easier to secure over seedlings than plastic bottles

Uncover containers every morning to let plants breath

Plastic bottles can be used but generally they overheat plants or easily blow away in the wind

Still shoveling garden 2 + flower pictures

I continued to work in the second garden today turning the soil over to till. If I go at it tomorrow, I will have the second Garden all shoveled and ready to till. Then next week, I'll till the garden to plant greens, beans and potatoes. I also enjoyed looking at the flowers under the spring Sun.

Sowed carrot, kale, cilantro, beet seed around seedlings

After days of hot weather, it immediately set in rain, then got cold. So I covered the seedlings in the garden with plastic bottles. Today I sowed carrot, kale, cilantro, and beet seed around the seedlings in the garden.

On the right, carrot "little fingers" and arugula were sowed

Beet seed and cilantro sowed around seedlings in the bed beside grow bags 

Around the bottles, a line of kale was sowed

I need to rotate the soil here again then I'll transplant pepper & tomatoes 

I'm going to sow squash & cucumber seed here in May

80 degrees here & mulching the gardens + flower photos

Yesterday I got a truck load of mulch for 20 dollars and spread it on the hugelkultur mounds as well as the fruit trees, flower garden and the fruit bushes. I have peas, cabbages, cauliflower, and collards growing in the garden now so I really needed them mulched during this hot period then cold of April.

Mulched around greens and peas

Mulched this bed for squashes in May

Mulched around greens in bed on the left, not sure what to plant on the right

Mulched fruit trees and fruit bushes 

The truckload was actually so much mulch that I even spread it on an additional garden bed and my grandma's trees and flowers I planted for her. This is a tip: do not buy bagged soil as it is expensive and never enough soil. 20 dollars for will get you 2 bags of soil at Southern States or Lowe's. So I get a truck load from an Amish community that works a garden center.

After mulching almost everything in two people's yards yesterday, I can feel every part of my body aching from shoveling the mulch. Even today I cleaned my second garden, started shoveling the soil and had a fire until it set in rain...

But yesterday was successful because I used the mulch for the grow bags and planted potatoes in them as well. I'm glad at least I have several rows of food growing now because actually I am a little behind schedule this year from the cold spring weather.

Grow bags with potatoes

 According to farmer's almanac, the 13th through the 15th are good days to cultivate so I wanted to get the mulching around the plants done. It was 80 degree weather here in northern Kentucky, and it will be very warm for the next couple of days.

There is going to be a couple of cool days so after that I'm going to transplant more of my greenhouse seedlings and sow root crops and greens.

Today made more of the Tulips to bloom out. They're so magnificent.

Covering the fruit trees from snow & other fruits trying to grow

It was a cold and snowy morning so I prepared for the snow last night by covering the tulip garden and blooming fruit trees. When I woke up this morning, I knocked off the snow from the tree covers and the row covers on the tulips.

Obviously I can't cover the bigger fruit trees, but I can cover the blueberries and actually I should have because they're trying to bloom as well.

The two large pear trees and plum are too big to cover

The old peach is too big to cover

I have kept the 3 fig trees covered all winter & spring so far

I think there's less than 10 blueberries and most of them are trying to bloom

2 goji plants are leafing but the other 2 are not

The other 2 goji are here with aronia plants and grape vines that are leafing

The raspberries are leafing out here, but the 5th goji here is also not leafing yet 

Tulips blooming everyday, fruit trees still blooming

Happy generation variety

Peach trees 

Plum tree blossoms smell like grape flavoring

Sad days but the gardens are being prepped

For weeks, I've been going up in the woods collecting rocks, leaves, and logs, for the garden but I feel that's coming to an end. When I woke up today I saw the property owner using a bobcat to make paths in the woods so they can sell the property. I'm worried I won't be able to go in the woods anymore, the woods that means so much to me. The woods behind my house is the place I go to be alone, to think, to cry, to sing, to hike, to meditate and enjoy nature. We'll see what happens... I wish I can buy it but I don't have $200,000 to buy land just to say that I own it, nobody owns land when land owns itself.

I was collecting the rocks though to start making a cob house for free, and now my dream is crushed. It's the mounting sadness of everything, though...my cat just died. I've also been dealing with drastic home repair efforts and loneliness, crippling depression. I never really talk about myself on this blog because the focus is on the garden, but it's simply something I can't hide when the woods that gives me life is being sold out from under me...Maybe I should write a book about it (haha.)

On a lighter note, I took more pictures of the Tulip Garden because the Tulips are blooming almost everyday. There's at least one to tulip that blooms each day.

Yesterday was 80 degrees here, so I took advantage of the weather, and I cleaned the garden beds, then added soil. Additionally, I started making the hoop house that you see beside the two garden beds.

Usually I grow tomatoes in this spot, but the summer I'm going to plant melon and pumpkin seed here. A couple months back, I shoveled in compost so the soil here is Rich and will be perfect for melons and pumpkins.