Starting the New Year and My Ongoing Pest Problems

Saturday I inventoried all the food I had canned, and dried.  Sunday I inventoried the things I froze.  This inventory will help me decide what to plant this year.  I must say "THANK YOU" to my mom for canning beets, peaches, and spaghetti sauce and drying apples for me.  There was no fruit on my trees and I didn't get enough beets or tomatoes to can.
This year I know that I need to plant lots of cucumbers.  The pickles are getting low.
My seed catalogs are arriving in the mail and I am getting excited for a warm afternoon to start working in the garden.
I watered the garden December 27 and left it uncovered for two days.  There is enough spinach for a salad still growing.  I will harvest that and the beets this week, since it is supposed to be warm.  The beets are planted in the coolest raised bed in the garden and I want to get that bed prepared so I can get cabbage and  broccoli started there really soon.
I will get another bed or two prepared for lettuce, spinach, and peas this month too.
I keep having the feeling to start things earlier this year, so I will.  I can cover everything if needed.
Two years ago I started my lettuce and spinach in February.  Three years ago I started my lettuce, spinach, and peas in January.  Both of those years I had great crops.
I looked out into my backyard Wednesday morning and saw a rabbit sitting near the garden.  I had noticed in November that there were foot prints near my compost buckets, but I couldn't tell what they were and I wondered if something was living in my yard.  Well I guess a cottontail rabbit was.
I opened the gate and threw rocks near him, so he would head towards the gate.  He did.  He ran out my gate and under the neighbor's gate.
I scraped the driveway gravel so that it would meet the bottom edge of the gate.  I checked the fence between us and next door.  I had to fix the chicken wire in the back corner where it was pushed in.  I'm sure the rabbit could fit through that opening.
I moved the wood and rock that I had used to block the antelope squirrels from coming in behind the beehive, since it wasn't doing any good.  I ended up making a big mess instead of blocking out the critters.  The bees are all inside the hive, so it was a good time to clean.
I also found that the cat is back and has been for a while.  It has three new places it is going to the bathroom in my yard. One place is next to the fence where there isn't any tack strip.  That side of the yard was never a problem.  Thursday I got out the box of tack strip and now the fence has carpet tack strip on it except where the grapevine grows over the fence.  I need help to get it there, but I am hoping the cat doesn't decide he can climb up and down a grapevine to get into  my yard.  There is also a section of fence that backs the desert that doesn't have tack strip on it.  I don't expect him to show up from that direction.
I got the vinegar spray bottle out and sprayed all the dirt.  I've been so busy I can't believe it is already Monday.  I will get spraying again this evening and do that daily for a while. This time I hope the cat leaves for good.
Forgot to buy more tulle at the fabric store this morning.  I have enough to cover the frame on the bed while they are short, but I will need more to cover the plants as they grow.
I am going to keep the cabbage and broccoli covered with tulle from seed to harvest.  Hopefully that will help with the bug problem better.

What's happening in the garden lately?

Almost all of our asparagus died 2 years ago.  We planted new last year.  Here it is growing with the parsley that managed to survive the tilling and digging.  The big bunch of asparagus in the front is about 14 years old.  Most asparagus lives 10 - 12 years.  Parsley and asparagus are great companions.

Twelve days later and look at how much everything has grown.  The asparagus in the front is almost 6 feet tall.  We do not cut the asparagus fronds.  We leave them to feed the roots.  Next spring we will cut/break them off at ground level.  In years past the fronds have been so dense laying on the ground that they have made a great ground cover and the asparagus has started growing in January.

I took the pink cover off of the end of the broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage bed so you can see how they are growing above the original cover, but this weather is getting to freezing and below still.

A tiny head of broccoli is forming.

Another tiny head.  These plants really are the same color. Don't know what happened.  Now is the time to start seeds indoors for the fall crop, but the spring crop isn't very far along yet.

 Here is one of the heads of cabbage forming.  If the weather ever warms up enough for them to stay uncovered, the cabbage moth will be showing up.  I will be covering these with bridal tulle soon.  Pictures will be posted.

Another cabbage plant.  This should be forming into a head soon.

This bed of potatoes did not get covered a couple of weeks before this picture was taken.  Everything was brown, because it froze.  As you can see now it is coming back.

Another picture from the same potato bed after the freeze.

Now that all the tomatoes and tomatillas have a Wall of Water around each of them and a tomato cage around the plant too, it has become a pain to protect them from frost.  Larry thought of dropping empty buckets (my rain water ones) inside the cages to protect them.  So far it has worked good.  There are 15 of these.  I am all for lazy gardening.

The weather was nice one day about a week ago.  Larry mowed the lawn.  Randy Robison teaches in his classes to add a thick layer of grass (chemical free) or alfalfa pellets around the tomato plants and inside the Wall of Water.  It is to stay there all summer.  We decided to give it a try.  The plants are still little, so the grass is about 3 to 4 inches deep.

Same thing here.  This one is a tomatilla and little taller plant.  I don't think we will add more grass.  Will keep you posted.

Can you see the rhubarb flower?  I can only because I know where to look.  It is center front.  I know that at least 7 flowers have been cut off at the base of 3 plants already.  All these flowers mean that it is time to dig them up and divide them next spring.  Let me now if you want rhubarb.

Here is a closeup of a rhubarb flower.  There are four flowers at different stages of development right now.  This one is the largest.