Gardening Progress

Today I transplanted the last of the plants into the community garden that will be going in this month.  I still don't quite trust the weather, so I'm not putting my cucurbits in until June.  Actually, I may go back later this week and seed some anyway, since I've started transplants of my own to get a head start.  It would be interesting to compare the rate of growth outside where it has been rather warm as opposed to indoors under my inadequate lighting.  I desperately need better conditions for starting my own seeds indoors, but at the moment I'm not getting them, so I guess I'll have to tough that out.

The plants I put in today were the 'Green Goliath' Broccoli, the 'Snowball' Cauliflower, and the 'Cour di Bue' Cabbage.  Of those three, the cabbage had the most vigorous seedlings, so I'm hoping at least one of these Brassicas will work out.  I don't seem to have good luck with them in general, though.  It may just be the climate here- we tend to have VERY hot summers and with short spring/fall seasons, it doesn't work out all that well for cool-weather vegetables.  It might also be that I need to just keep experimenting and start even earlier next year.  We'll have to see.  Gardening is a continual learning process for everyone- even people with tons of experience can be taken by surprise.

I will admit that the broccoli thing is kind of discouraging, though, because all I hear everywhere is how "easy" it is to grow.  Yet I've never been successful!  I'm not one to give up, however, so I'm trying not to let it get me down.

I've had to re-evaluate the planting plans for the house a bit- I am thinking now what I will do is have my brother-in-law weed whack/mow down everything that is next to the house and then lay down soil bags to plant the melons and whatnot in.  Then at the end of the season I can pull out the plants and turn the soil under, and put everything under cardboard to kill down grass/weeds/perennials that might still be surviving.  I'm also not sure I'm going to be able to grow the 'Glass Gems' corn this year- which is REALLY disappointing, but I am hoping the seeds will keep until next year when I can do a bit more work.

Overall I am really just trying not to take on too much at once, because I can't do most of this stuff all by myself- I don't have the energy!  So I have to rein it in a bit and take baby steps.