Planting

Finally I started planting in the vegetable garden today! After weeks of weeding, spreading compost, weeding, planning, weeding, raking, weeding, making rows, the time has come for me to plant. Have I mentioned I had to weed a lot? Local folklore around here has it that one shouldn't plant before the June full moon. Folklore like this has its roots, so to speak, in the untold generations of gardening experience, something not only I respect but deeply appreciate. The only problem with this is that I'd rather plant while the moon is waxing, not waning. So I do start planting with June's new moon but slowly, starting with the most hardy crops.

Today I planted two types of onions, yellow and red. I haven't tried red before so I'm curious to see how they do. With the onions I put in different leaf lettuces and beets. Once my dill is big enough, I'll put some in there, too. This is only my second year of companion planting, I'm still learning as I go. It seems to be a bit of a hit-or-miss proposition, sometimes it seems to make a difference, other times the bugs just trample right over the plants that are supposed to repel them to get to the plants they want to eat. I'm companion planting more for pest control than anything else but I'm not going to whine if I get a bigger yield from it, either. If nothing else, the garden certainly looks more interesting since I started mixing and matching plants.

It was just nice to be back in the garden planting today.