First Garden Seeds Planted

It’s time. The weather is right. The soil is ready. The seeds are purchased. It’s time to plant the garden—the early stuff not tomatoes, sweet corn, squash, pumpkins, green beans and other such that requires warmer soil, warmer nights, and yes warmer days.

On Good Friday—a proper day for planting I’m hoping—I planted four rows in the raised garden in my backyard. One row each of spinach, radishes, lettuce and peas. It’s a tiny garden, only three feet by eight feet. But each year I’m surprised how much twenty-four square feet of soil will produce.

I have a problem with rabbits, and squirrels that want to dig up the seeds as soon as I plant them. I cover the garden with nearly invisible black netting that keeps the critters out. As the plants come up and grow, I keep raising the netting, but it remains in place throughout the growing season.

Next Saturday is garden day at the farm—long rows of potatoes, more lettuce, radishes and other cool weather crops. A much larger garden that feeds three families, and provides ample opportunity for hoeing, weed pulling, rototilling, and yes, harvesting when things are ready.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: The coming of spring is confirmed when the first garden seeds are planted.

WRITER’S WORKSHOP: Friday, August 18, 9-4:00 p.m. The Clearing, Door County.
Call 920-854-4088. Limited enrollment.

UPCOMING EVENTS:
April 17, 6:30 p.m. New Berlin Library. Never Curse the Rain.

April 23, 7:00 p.m. Lebanon Historical Society. Town Hall, Fire Station, Lebanon. Storytelling.

April 27, 6:00 p.m. Waupaca Historical Society, 320 S. Main Street, Waupaca. Barns of Wisconsin.

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fundraiser for them):

The library now has available signed copies of Jerry’s DVDs:

Emmy Winner, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps (based on The Quiet Season book.)
Jerry Apps a Farm Story (based on Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm books.)
The Land with Jerry Apps, (based on the book Whispers and Shadows.)

Also available are several of Jerry’s signed books including: Jerry’s newest nonfiction book, Never Curse the Rain, and his newest novel, The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County. Also available are Wisconsin Agriculture: A History,
Roshara Journal (with photos by Steve Apps) and Telling Your Story—a guide book for those who want to write their own stories.

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.
Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division Street
Wild Rose, WI 54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org
www.wildroselibrary.org
920-622-3835