Mark has been working to get as much planted as he could in advance of the storms that were forecast for today, and he's gotten a lot accomplished.  This photo shows hot tops sitting over Brandywine tomatoes that went in right by the house.  We have a long narrow garden east of the back yard, and he planted the Beefsteak tomatoes there today.  Other plantings in the past couple of days include summer squash, onion plants and sets, and sweet corn.  The sweet corn went out in an impromptu garden; the cow pen our friends built last summer. It held a pile of manure they said they would spread with their Bobcat, but so far the only spreading has been whatever the horses have pushed around when they've wandered into the pen.  Rather than bring the manure to the seeds, Mark decided to bring the seeds to the manure.  That planting of corn should be through by county fair time, so here's hoping they don't need it for cows earlier this year than they have other years.

It's been a week full of muscle aches and sore backs, as garden season has ramped up to include tilling and planting.  Our tiller is in the shop but our neighbor was kind enough to lend is his, so Mark spent 2 days tilling all of the garden plots.  We knew rain was forecast for Wednesday night going into Thursday, so Wednesday was a frenzy of planting. 

The broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage plants went out; here you can see the north garden broccoli waiting for their hot tops to be put on.  Mark also planted our first batch of sweet corn, plus beets, spinach, zucchini, and about half of our onion plants.  He'll have a number of sweet corn plantings to produce corn for the longest span of time, provided the weather looks favorably upon us.  Last year we had only two puny ears, while the year before that, we had so much sweet corn that Mark's gums were sore from eating some every day for about about 6 weeks.

This north garden was plagued by rabbits last year; even with anchoring our chicken-wire fence, the little fuzzies wormed under the wire and decimated every living thing.  We haven't seen a single rabbit since the fall, so we were hoping to have a bunny-free planting season this year.  Nope!  Mark was literally sitting with his eyes closed envisioning where to plant the broccoli, and when he opened his eyes, he was staring straight at a rabbit!  Chico the Garden Dog has gotten too slow to chase them, so he contents himself with peeing on the hot tops, and looking reproachfully at Mark when Mark gripes about the rabbits.

In non-gardening news, Mark has been mowing the lawns and generally gearing up for another season of being the Maintenance King.  Looks like someone has taken a shine to the weed-whacker; the mud was still wet in the nest.  You can see Chico in the second photo, wanting to get a better look at what's going on.

In gardening news, the seedlings continue to grow, but they could look better than they do.  Mark is wondering if we bought some lousy potting matrix.  We used the same brand last year, and the seedlings did the same thing; they have poor color and brown shrively leaves.  Once we got them in the ground they perked right up, but we were hesitant to put them out because they seemed a little frail.  Last year we put it down to the weather, but this year the weather is different, so now it's down to the matrix.  We'll see how this years' seedlings do, and will switch to a different matrix next year.

In celebration of Earth Day, Mark is dividing a bunch of chives and plans to do some trash pickup along the road ditch when it stops raining.  He's also found a new nursery for our seedlings, as you can see here.  This was originally a reptile tank that's been in our storage trailer for some time.  The seed trays fit in there just right, more sunlight can get into the wee planties, and we have the option of running a heat lamp out there if need be.  He's still covering these at night with a blanket, but the cold crops probably would rather he not.

Check out how well the rhubarb are doing, behind the nursery box!

Things have been happily growing here in the garden laboratory, with the tomatoes getting their 2nd and 3rd leaf sets under the protective glass of the cold frame.  Eggplants, cauliflower and broccoli are all growing fast and have great color to their leaves.  Meanwhile, the peppers have not grown any leaf sets beyond the first pair, and are content with pointing their leaves more vertically each day.  Mark was very pleased to notice 2 more rhubarb plants nudging through the straw of their bed, which you can just see to the far left and right in the first photo above.  We look forward to being able to harvest some rhubarb next year.

The center photo shows Chico, the official garden dog, drinking from what appears to be an ordinary bucket of water.  What Chico doesn't know is that there are 2 bunches of asparagus crowns soaking at the bottom of the bucket.  What looks like his reflection is really the yellow mesh bags these crowns were shipped in.  The 3rd photo shows the ultimate destination for those crowns; a portion of an asparagus trench Mark started over the weekend.  He ended up digging 2 long trenches and planting 18 crowns per trench.  It's a lot of work but the results will be wonderfully tasty in a couple of years.  Mark is now turning his thoughts to more immediate crops and spoke of putting in some lettuce seed this morning.

It might not be extra luxurious just yet, but those two rhubarb plants you can see poking above the straw are pretty exciting for Mark.  These plants belonged to his grandfather and have been moved from garden to garden for many years.  Mark brought four plants here from his father's townhouse in Des Moines a couple years ago, and it looks like they have finally decided to give it a go here in Leon. 

In the foreground you can see the wee tomatoes, peppers and eggplants as they soak up the rays in the cold frame.  They had a nice water soak this morning to celebrate their second leaf sets coming in; you can see the tub to the left of the  These plants are still coming in at night, while the broccoli and cauliflower are enjoying the starry skies.

Just beyond the cold frame and the rhubarb bed is Chico, the official Garden Dog.  He's a very handsome Chow/Heeler mix  who killed a gigantic mole last week---it was the size of a pregnant rat.  So far, that is the only mole we've seen this year but the neighbors tell us their yard is riddled with mole trails.  If Chico can't keep up we might have to get this ebook to get rid of them ourselves.  A nice woman at the flea market said she's heard that Double Bubble put down in their runs will be toxic for them, but it would take a few pounds to take out a mole the size of ours.  Yikes!

Woooo-hooo, they are shipping the asparagus crowns this week!  Time for Mark to decide where to make their bed.  This winter he'd intended to put them on the west side of our storage trailer, but after consulting the Oracle in the left-hand photo, he's not so sure.  (The Oracle is a well-worn copy of the Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, 1959  I like to think of it as Mark's external brain).  The chosen location has the advantage of being close to a large amount of dry cow manure, but it might be shadier than the asparagus would like?

The middle photograph shows some changes he's made to the cold frame, using lumber that was in an old pickup truck a friend gave us.  This frees up the straw bales for other uses, although it's doubtful that Brownie will get them back as dog furniture.  They'll probably turn into mulch for the small garden plot you can see just behind the cold frame.  Sorry, Brownie!

After anxiously scanning the seed catalogs and plotting this years' garden, Mark finally gets to start some seedlings! 

Far left photo shows the trays of damp seeds & potting mix covered with plastic to incubate them.  Mark has tucked the empty seed packets on top of the trays so he can tell what's what. 

Second from the left photo shows the seedlings as they have just erupted through the soil, along with a bunch of little plastic identity tags that we hope are right.  The Bearded Dragons didn't think much of losing their light for a short time, but Mark feared his peppers were looking spindly.

The next photo over was taken 26 March and shows everything looking pretty good, except for the eggplants, which are shy.  Mark has a very green thumb, but eggplants do seem to be a challenge in one way or another, each year.

Far right photo maybe shows why the eggplants are wanting to stay in the warm soil?  It's cold out there!  That's our cold frame, fittingly covered with snow, and as the young plants are introduced to the Great Outdoors they will be spending time there.