I buried the salmon carcasses from Sunday's fishing in my raised beds, where some of the plants were not thriving.  If they're not happy by now they won't produce this summer.  Goodbye arugula, Caserta squash, and strawberry spinach.  I transplanted some overcrowded kale and chard into the cleared soil atop the fish.

My spinach bolted so I harvested it all.  When the days turned shorted, there it went.  Bolting is a problem with greens here, and is why we're so limited on varieties that produce well.   

Last night we had our first Chard meal.  It was mostly Lucullus with some Rhubarb chard.   The Lucullus grows the fastest of all the varieties I've tried, but it's also the mildest, almost too mild for cooking.  I'll have to try it raw next time.  The chard is definitely light limited, because this first harvest is from my sunniest bed.  

Posted by gail_heineman at 11:57 AM YDT

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Yesterday the holes in some of the chard leaves were unmistakable.  I'd been in denial, but I peered closely at the leaves of a struggling zuchinni plant.  Slugs!  Tiny slugs, the size of long-grain rice, but lots and lots of slimy grey slugs!  Aaagh!  I poured Sluggo pellets around the raised bed, and tore off the infested leaf and threw it near the sluggo.

Today it's raining.  Please, Sluggo (non-toxic biodegradable slug bait), do your work.  I will not go out and pick up slugs and kill them.  

I've used Sluggo in years past.  In my experience it slows them way down but doesn't stop them.  Only picking up all of them stops them, and that's not going to happen here.

Posted by gail_heineman at 11:02 AM YDT

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Today I made fish stock from the heads and backbones of the red salmon we dipnetted from the Kasilof River yesterday.  I buried the bones in the rows of seeds that didn't germinate in my garden very well:  some cilantro and thyme.  Other cilantro did ok.  Some of my seeds are probably too old and I should throw them away.

So now I have some room to transplant the greens that germinated very well and are too crowded.  I'll wait a couple of days for the soil mounded over the bones to sink down a bit before I do the transplanting.

Over the years I've buried many a salmon carcass in this garden.  I sometimes stick my finger on a pointy vertebra bone that hasn't decomposed yet. 

Posted by gail_heineman at 10:36 PM YDT

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Last year I bought three bare-root hybrid tea roses at Fred Meyer's.  For under four dollars a plant, I figured I could grow them as an annual.   I planted them deeply so that the graft was below the soil, hoping that they might just send down roots.  I got one beautiful bloom from each, and I cut each one and kept it inside to savor.  Last winter was severe, and this spring I saw that the above-ground rose stems were dry and dead.  In fact, my Hansa rose that I've had for years died, too.  But just in the past couple of days I saw the unmistakable stem of a hybrid tea rising above the tulip leaves, and today I dug down and found the metal tag I made last year.  My Olympiad rose has grown up from the roots!  I wish it had a scent, but other than that, its bloom was perfection last year.

This spring I was in Portland and purchased a Etoile de Hollande on its own root.  If the Olympiad can make it, it gives me more hope for the Etoile de Hollande.  The bed is next to the house in full sun, the best microclimate I have in my yard.  

Posted by gail_heineman at 10:02 PM YDT

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