Starts came up last week, about the 3rd or so, already thinned them. I planted five rows of raised “hills” for planting the lettuce. JUST starting to see the onion seedlings come up, no sign of carrots yet. I will raise the dirt up again in mounds for the bean and cucumber seeds in the back of the planter in May, so they get a little more light behind the carrots (also only two rows of carrots for this reason).
Delphinium Menzenseii has come up, but I’ve had to protect it from slugs. We had tried it and the Nutellii variant a couple of times but they never survive. I remember why now, they always got eaten by slugs. One day to the next the first two tiny leaves got ‘et’. First I put both a glass bowl cloche and some slug bait around it. But something kept digging at the bowl and getting inside, it turns out only to eat the slug bait. I think it was birds, but at least they’ve left it alone and there are about six small leaves now. Maybe it will be the bluebell in the bubble…..watching its vigorous cousin trifoliata leaf out and flower in four places, but at least I’ll get it through the season. That is until it suffocates in the glass cloche.
Also, have two new (actually 3 but one not planted) Vanilla Leaf plants, one of which has six leaves and looks great, in a new spot in the lower back yard. Another one had two leaves eaten despite a cloche, so I moved it, haven’t seen much come up yet but the stems I saw in the soil looked promising.
Below are Delphinium and a small patch of Vanilla Leaf from a couple of years ago, which is now spreading slowly in a couple of areas….need to update pix this year for a few of these I see:
ellensgarden.us 