A Week later in the Garden

The time to hoe and weed is before it looks like it's needed. I spent a morning in the garden, doing a preemptive strike -- rain is in the forecast and things can get out of hand more quickly than you could imagine.

Up above the rock wall I've sown California poppies -- a gift from my friend Josie.  They were tiny gray-green threads the first time I weeded but now they've made some size and I'm looking forward to flowers  in the month to come. f nothing don't happen, as they say.

There's lettuce and spinach and chard and kale in the box beds -- now that they're weeded, they need to be thinned and spread around.  

 In the lower tiers, corn in sprouting through the netting the protects the sprouting kernels from the crows.

And the tomatoes are taking hold and starting to grow.  

The collards and kale, broccoli and cauliflower are under cover -- protecting them from  bugs. These greens are amazingly tender -- we've been enjoying them stir fried and raw in salads.

I've been picking the asparagus almost every day --  with June almost here, it'll soon be time to leave it alone and let it grow. 

Eggplant (below) as yet untouched by the usually inevitable flea beetles -- perhaps the colder than usual winter is responsible.

So far, so good -- that's the most one dares say about a garden. The deer and bunnies, worms and bugs, crows and groundhogs and voles are lurking -- not to mention all the blights and mildews,  molds and viruses just waiting to attack.  An exercise of faith, if ever there was one.