Lots of rain here, too. But I'm still grateful for it, we have been at drought or near-drought conditions for 6 of the past seven years. If it keeps coming down, I won't have much of a garden, but the watertable might finally get replenished. DH's lettuce has been doing just fine in the coldbed, although an invasion of slugs made a lot of leaves disappear. I reminded him to put the coffee grounds around the plants, so the new leaves are now growing perfect. He has a mental glitch about the coffee, applying after a slug attack and then not again until another invasion and another reminder. The peas are starting to bloom. The potatoes are growing faster than I can keep the stems covered. No cabbage, kale, or cauliflower. These normally are grown by DH and this year he didn't start any seeds, and it's been too wet to seed directly. I guess I'll see if any of the local nurseries have cabbage plants. It feels strange to be in the middle of May and most of the garden still looks like winter. It's just been too wet to get it ready for the seedlings.

If you still intend to surround the garden with fencing, don't make the mistake my friend did. She put a cute 2-ft wooden fence around her new garden patch and... the rabbits dug under. I told her to get some galvanized chicken wire taller than her fence, bend it into a right angle lengthwise, and staple the upright side to the wooden fence, and leave the lower part extending outward on the ground like an apron. Most animals try to dig under right where the vertical mesh touches the ground, never thinking to back up a foot or two to dig under the 'apron'. It's a killer to see all your hard work chomped like that. Sue

There are all kinds of threads on controlling rabbit damage that you could search and read. Given your description of your life, I would recommend barriers. Put trunk protectors around any young or delicious tree trunks. Add a 2 foot tall layer of chicken wire around the outside of your garden fence, and allow an extra 12-18 inches to extend out over the ground to prevent digging. Baby bunnies can slip through chain link without thinking. Ground hogs or wood chucks may still wreak havoc, but we can cross that bridge if we come to it. The benefit of my suggestions is that you do it once and you're done. Applying repellents requires re-treating whenever it rains, and scare tactics wear out over time. Good luck. Martha

Diane, It is a challenge to figure it out, isn't it! It is safe to say that I could grow zero brussels sprouts and my family would be delighted...so that one is easy to figure out. (I like 'em fresh but no one else cares for them. LOL) Today we were looking at fresh produce at Central Market in Fort Worth (yes, I was in hog heaven, thank you very much) and Tim sampled a tiny cup of black-eyed peas. Now, several thoughts ran through my mind. First of all, do they "have to" give away samples of black-eyed peas to get people to try them? Secondly, doesn't everyone know what blackeyed peas taste like? LOL Finally, when my dear husband looked at the bag of more-or-less freshly hulled black-eyed peas (maybe a pint of fresh peas in that bag) and saw they were $5.99, I practically purred like a kitten, thinking of all the pint bags of freshly-shelled (then frozen) black-eyed peas in our freezer.....all of which grew right here in our good old Oklahoma soil with no chemicals, etc. I felt smug and content (in a good way, NOT in a conceited 'holier-than-thou-because-we-grow-our-own" way) but more than that I felt grateful that we are able to grow our own and process/preserve them to be eaten later on. It is the most wonderful feeling in the world to be feeding your family from your own garden and to know where your food came from and how it was raised. I have a pressure canner but have only done BWB stuff this year along with tons of dehydrating and freezing. I go on canning binges....can a lot some years, less in others. With this year's recurring rains, I've put up more food for the 'off-season' than in many prior drought years, and I am really happy about that. So far, one thing I've learned is that no matter how many beans and peas I plant, we eat them all long before the next gardening season rolls around. So, I am planning on lots more next year. Yesterday I picked Roma beans from the garden...and I don't even remember which variety I have except that they are the bush form and that it was from Franchi Simenti seed, and they are so good that I know I must plant many more of them next year. I can only remember one year in recent memory....and it might have been 2004....where I put up enough beans to get us from one gardening year to the next without running out. Growing the soil is why new beds take me so long to build too. In the long run, it is worth it of course, but turning clay into great garden loam certainly involves a long commitment! And, yet, I don't know how we could have done it any differently. I have found very few (almost no) spots in Love County that have a nice, rich, humusy sandy loam that is naturally occurring. For most people here, there are three choices: very sandy soil that drains too quickly in dry years and is prone to nematodes, heavy, thick red (but highly fertile) clay like we have here, and caliche clay full of rocks. So, with those three to choose from, I'm glad we have the clay, but I also appreciate our one small band of sand that cuts across the yard. I greow pecan and fruit trees in that band of sandy soil and they love it. Got your eye on a specific brand of canner? As for jars, I collect them. hee hee I can't walk past jars or lids without wanting more......"just in case". Even if I have plenty of empty jars sitting in storage waiting to be used, I almost have a panic attack when the stores start putting the jars and lids on clearance in the fall. What if I need jars a month or two from now and can't find any? (This has never happened--I always have jars tucked away in the pantry or in a closet, but "what if?" LOL). I always thought I'd have a smaller garden as time went on and we got older, but now I'm growing enough for 2 families instead of 1, so I'm growing more. (Although, DS and his wife and their daughter don't eat as many veggies as we do, except for french fries and green beans...and salsa.) My all-time favorite dedicated kitchen garden spot was an 8' x 8' raised bed in which I planted a "Salsa Garden". It was just outside the back door and in it I had tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic and cilantro. If you had a sudden urge to make salsa, everything was right there. I later planted a few rose bushes in that raised bed and enjoyed that, but I liked it better as a salsa garden. Dawn