I'll second the advice on pH. I know mine is very low (in an adjacent garden bed I recently measured 4.9, with an admittedly imprecise instrument, but still, if it is anywhere near there it is way too low) so I dropped some Jonathan Green "Mir-a-cal" with the idea that this stuff is supposed to work much faster than lime. Given that it is spring, and rainfall and existing soil fertility have a great deal to do with greenup, I can still say, in a very unscientific way, that none of my fertilizer applications has ever had the impact that that Mir-a-Cal application did. I know there is a good likelihood that I am misinterpreting my "data," but in my gut I'm a believer now. I have read that too low pH can prevent the plants from even using some of the nutrients that are in the soil, and I suspect that this has been a big part of my past difficulties. That is just a long way of saying that I second the suggestion to check your pH. Liming is something I've never really done, mostly because I have read that it can be done "anytime." Which for me apparently translates into "never." I guess I work better with deadlines... But not anymore, at least as far as pH is concerned.

Yes, That is the plant. The cats on the dill are not Monarch's. Monarchs have black yellow and green stripes, but no dots. They will only eat Milk Weed. Each summer in Michigan,our grand daughters and I raise a couple of monarchs in a screened covered jar. BUT we also have gobs of wild milkweed. Seems as if I am the only one in our park that has this plant, but we noticed tonight that three of the cats have started their next phase, so the new plant should be food enough for the other three.I have hopes that my plants will grow new leaves, and maybe a new family of monarchs..

Oh yeah, for those of us who get a winter, the plant appearance calendar is the only thing that gets us through. Those long days of summer seem a distant memory - it is a case of staying out as long as my feet can bear it (I swear, I am going to try battery feet warmers, despite the ridiculous costs). Garden work is mainly raking out brownly wilted leafage and the usual, endless weeding. The vegetable beds are easy - friable loamy soil that is easily tossed about with a flick of the fork but the perennials and such, require grubbing around with pointy sticks. Dandelions and hateful centranthus have joined mallows and couch grass on the rabid list - this horrid quartet insinuate themselves into the very centres of beloved miscanthus, asters and heleniums. A few years ago, I completely dug everything out, separating skeins of rhizomatous rootings - a long, cold and bloody task which worked for about 3 months till April. Gave up. Unnatural attrition and resigned neglect has seen off a number of iffy specimens and pale loiterers (callistemon, various salvias, even a couple of Phlox) leaving a Darwinian self-selected bunch of thug types which either ramp to enormous heights in about 3 weeks - fennel, rudbeckias, panicums or cover the ground in clumps of weed-blocking plantage (so goes the theory, ha!) such as heleniums, asters, monarda. I can generally get on top of it because it is a late starter on the plot. Nothing much happens in this patch till May but it really takes off with tanacetum, alstroemerias, verbascum, oriental poppies and a whole bunch of hardy annuals - red flax, Love-in-the mist, calendula, daylily leaves and tree paeonies. overlooked and by a huge freestanding R.moyessi. Not a subtle and refined space but moyessi holds the whole thing in equilibrium - deep red blooms in May/June and scarlet bottle-shaped heps in autumn - top rose. Once the late spring show is over, I wander off to other beds, pretty much ignoring it until the hooligans push and barge. It does look pretty good - nothing needs staking or falls over and a huge canopy of compositae types (and butterflies) have a moment in the sun. It then looks terrible. All those pictures of hoarfrost on foliage and seedheads are rubbish - what I get is a massive haystack of tough and sodden herbage which laughs at my enormous strimmer and is home to a zillion slugs. Still, this is my first couple of days since the Xmas couch-fest (apart from a bit of gentle seed-sowing) so obviously, I am rambling more than usual.....

I'm not sure. The bottom layer was just cheap cypress mulch. The black mulch on top (bought before I found out wood mulch shouldn't be used with vegetable gardens) just said hardwood. I've moved the top mulch well away from all the plants. My cucumbers now have lots of leaves and even a few flowers, but they're still only a few inches tall. We'll find out I guess! Even if I don't get a good crop this year, I learned a lot and I'm having fun. I think I will be a life long gardener :)