Greg found deer tracks in his garden on Sunday and had a tomato plant eaten. The next day he was working in the garage and a young doe appeared in the yard who had no fear of people and was in no hurry to leave.

Tuesday night, Natalie and I were having dinner on the deck and she appeared in the backyard heading for the garden. I yelled and was met with a blank stare. I charged into the back yard and she calmly walked through the garden with me following. She went down the path toward the house and then back around into the garden. She made two loops of the garden with me right behind her and I finally started clapping loudly her so she marched off between the houses, into the front yard and across the street to harass the other neighbors.

We went to Walkup Heritage Farm and Gardens in Crystal Lake to try to find a Mr. Stripey heirloom tomato. Instead, I found a Hungarian Heart tomato that is said to have originated in a village 20 miles from Budapest around 1900. It is a late tomato with 1 pound fruits.

This rounds out my heirloom tomato selection for the year.

Starting to get ridiculous. Cripes, it’s the 23 of May and we should be done with this cold weather by now. I covered everything based on the forecast, but it looks like we were OK, but more outlying areas did have some frost.

Temps in the high 80’s.

Last week’s weather prediction proved rather unreliable. Daytime temps have been in the low fifties and we barely escaped frost on Saturday night. Sunday night’s prediction was more ominous, so, like Peter, I erected 3 tents. (It is good that I was there.) One each over the tomato and pepper beds and the last over the  heirloom tomatoes. I covered the hot peppers, remaining heirloom tomatoes and zucchini with pots.

Everything survived. I don’t know if I needed the covering or not, but it was worth it for the peace of mind. We are out of the cold snap and temperatures tomorrow are supposed to be in the 80’s.

Planted 5 inch pots of Heirloom Tomatoes from Home Depot. Marion, German Queen and Lemon Boy. I couldn’t find a Mr. Stripey so I have room for one more Heirloom.

Here is the main planting for tomatoes and peppers. Looks like the weather will be frost-free for the week ahead, which will get us up to May 15th so we should be good for the year. All items from Goebbert’s.

Tomatoes:

• 2 Black Krim Heirlooms
• 2 Brandywine Heirlooms
• 4 Big Beef
• 15 Roma, 5 rows, 3 per row

Peppers:

• 4 Hot Hungarian Banana
• 4 jalapeno
• 8 more Valencia
• 4 Lady Bell
• 4 Gypsy
• 4 Melrose
• 8 Sweet Banana

Zucchini

• 2 Hills Spineless Beauty from plants.
• 1 Hill Squash Costata Romanesco

I planted 4 Early Girl tomato plants (1 large from Home Depot, 3 from Goebbert’s and 4 Valencia Peppers from Goebbert’s.

In the Herb Garden, I planted a couple pots of oregano, 3 thyme and parsley.

I also planted the cherry tomato plants by the porch, 1 Sun Sugar and 1 Super Sweet 100.

Last Wednesday and Thursday produced about five inches of rain and delivered a load of topsoil from Greg’s garden (uphill) to mine (downhill). It is sort of like the fertile river deltas that depend on the spring floods to enrich the soil. I did remember to thank him.

We awoke on Friday morning to 1/2 inch of snow on the ground which melted fairly quickly, but it was cold and windy all weekend and the ground was too wet to do much. Most of the greens other than the corn salad are sprouting, but growth is cold because of the cold wet weather.

Kohlrabi, broccoli and collard greens.

Today was sunny and the temperature made it into the upper 60’s, so I stopped at Goebbert’s for some cool weather vegetables which they were just putting out. All of the flowers are still in the greenhouses, but they are open.

I planted kohlrabi, Green Comet broccoli and collard greens in the new plot next to the horseradish. I put pots with the bottoms cut out around the broccoli and kohlrabi to keep away various woodland creatures, but didn’t have enough for the collard greens. Hopefully, they don’t like collard greens.

Kale and mustard green plants in between sprouting seeds.

I put the kale plants and mustard greens between the rows that I seeded earlier this month where the blue kale and chard were last fall. Only one kale plant survived from last year, but I let it go to see what will happen with it.

I also bought one pack of leeks, but I haven’t figured out where those should go yet. I also need to plant snow peas.

The garden in early April.

Another beautiful spring day with temperature in the upper 50’s and lots of sun. I raked the horseradish plot and tried to fill in the holes, also did a little yard cleanup and burned the Christmas wreath and garland that’s been sitting on the deck waiting for a good burn day.

I put flags in the tomato bed to mark locations for the tomato plants so that I could plant rows of greens between them. By the time the tomatoes are going into their growth spurt, the greens will have bolted and be ready to pull out.

Here’s what got planted today:
Asian Altor Greens
D’Avignon Long Radishes
More Lollo Rossa Lettuce
Corn Salad – Verte A Coeur Plein
More Arugula
Strawberry Spinach

I’ve been watering every day as the surface of the soil has been drying out and what I’ve planted is planted near the surface. Starting tonight, it’s supposed to rain all week. We’ll see.