The harvest has begun

This weekend was a busy one, all still without a kitchen. A few more weeks and all will be finished.  I'm so happy to have my wainscot ceiling. It's cheaper than drywall and looks a lot better.

I spent today harvesting the last of the spinach and chard before it bolted. Over six risotto dinners in the basket.

I prepared one of the last two beds to plant melons with my new broadfork. This will save me a lot of backbreaking work. I even feel like I had a good workout, although my neck muscles are sore, I hope I don't start to look like a linebacker.

We also managed to partially net the cherry tree before the birds stole all of the cherries.

Friday I saw a few reddish cherries but on Saturday I noticed many more. So did the birds. I watched a bird land on our roof, check me out and then jump onto the tree to do a taste test. I went back through the cherry postings at A Sonoma Garden blog, written by the previous owners. A great education! The next morning, we partially netted the tree. It has one trunk that reaches about 20' up, too high for us to even attempt to net. But we covered the majority. My husband told me he read that netting a tree can test a marriage. Ours was tested, but we came out just fine. Next year I'll plan ahead and order a finer grade mesh that's easier to work with and safer for the birds.

Spring planting in the square foot garden: chard, radishes, shiso, tarragon, peppers, lettuces, carrots,
calendula, bachelor buttons and santolina.

The rest of the garden is growing fast as are the gophers. All five of my parsley plants just disappeared one week as did a tomato (not sure who took the tomato, I didn't think gophers would eat those). What's next I wonder?