It seems my garden goes from zero to sixty every spring. For so long I'm struggling to prepare the soil and the plants are so small, but they skyrocket and now I have large tomato plants (with green fruit) and the oregano needs to be cut back, the rosemary needs to be cut way back, I'm eating a steady diet of chard and keeping a couple of other folks supplied. The eggplant are finally growing, and I have a space about double the size of my dining room table that I finished digging last week and need to amend and then plant.

Janie, that vitex/purple chaste is native here and does very well. I've cut off a lot of branches or it would be even wider, and I need to trim off the ones that are again leaning onto the roof line and are drooping into the path I use for walking the dogs out of the yard (with Invisible Fence we use the same one entry point all of the time.)

Snails this year have been a problem, you've heard about them already. I have replanted rows of beans, and I replanted some basil last week. I see the little sprouts are being knocked off again. I don't see the snails there now, so I'll put out more beer this evening.

There is the most gorgeous salad in this month's Martha Stewart Living if you flip through the magazine back to the stiff page with a perforated page of four recipes. It's a plated of cut up heirloom tomatoes. For a dressing she warms some garlic in olive oil then lets it cool and then sprinkles chives and basil and this garlic oil over the top. I'm sure it will work equally well with my super fantastic and large cherry tomatoes.

It's time to set up some of my tape and handy sprays, as it gets warmer plants get stressed and bugs come calling. And I forgot to spray my beneficial nematodes. It'll be too warm soon, but if I do it one evening or early morning they'll get into the environment. Time to do some weeding and transplanting some seedlings. I bought a tall colorful red salvia last year that I loved so I bought two more this year, only to find that it apparently seeded itself last year so I may move around some of those seedlings and have them in more places.

I took the pit bull to the vet for a sore foot (she has been licking it a lot). Turns out to be the dog version of a hangnail. :-/ Anyway, he trimmed it and gave me an oily ointment to put a drop on my finger to rub on the toe, then not let her lick it for 10 minutes. I commented that since I'd be putting it on my finger I'd be treating myself also. He said he uses this stuff all the time on himself. I may try it on some of the sore spots on my callouses, see if it helps!

SRS