It's Beginning to Feel a lot like the Tropics

I just can't quite get a handle on the weather lately. One week I'm covering my delicate garden vegetation in fear of them freezing to death (rip one each cucumber and broccoli plants) and the next (today) I'm looking out into a squishy yard with overcast skies and a high temperature in the 80's anticipated. All I can think is, "Thank goodness for central air. Bring it on!"

I've neglected writing for some time and have much to catch up on so today we'll talk about my garden plans for this season and maybe give you a few hints/tips for your own. Please note: if you haven't begun yours yet you're not too late. Most seasoned gardeners warn against planting anything until after Mother's Day. With the unseasonably warm/hot weather we've had here in PA I got a bit ahead of things but no worries. It may be a bit late to start from seed but plants are available anywhere from Sam's Club to Dan Schantz to Somerset Nursery.

I started my garden adventure back in January. Yes, January. I found a website where you could plot out your garden. I loved the idea and went to work adding in tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, peppers, spinach, onions and beans. I based starting seeds on the frost dates (which turned out to be wrong) and had my list all written out:

2/5 Start pepper seeds inside
2/26 Start tomato seeds inside
3/4 Start spinach seeds outside
3/15 Start bean seeds outside and plant onion sets
3/18 Start sweet and Indian corns inside
3/25 Start cucumber seeds inside
4/5 Start bean seeds inside for second batch and plant second batch of onion sets
4/15 Start second batch of cucumber seeds inside
5/20 Plant herbs

Well all of that went out the window with the weather as it's been. I did start the seeds inside but all of them...I was petrified to start the beans out there and the onions...yep, never even got them.

I currently have all corn, 1 bean, 5 broccoli, 3 cucumber and my rosemary in the garden and it's doing well. I hope to transplant tomatoes and peppers in a week or two but I need to make the garden a bit bigger since as usual I ran out of room. Yes, I plotted and used that website but when I was out getting the garden set up I realized I really needed to leave paths to walk around out there and had to replan a bit. No worries as it's a big hill with plenty of possibilities and plenty of vegetation to tackle so I can extend the garden area. Every year I say that it's big enough and every year it grows. My original 5 ft garden is now 4 times that size and will be even larger by the end of the season. Just think of all those fresh veggies though! YUM!

Photos to come of both the garden and what comes out of it. Spinach is starting to come up (yum again) and hopefully soon the other plants will take off and grow like crazy. All this rain will certainly help!