Coming Along

After I arrived a couple of weeks ago, we had a string of terrible weather after a couple of days of decent weather. It was about 40 and rainy every day. That weather was not conducive to germination. Finally, we've strung together some warm and sunny days, and it really shows in the garden. So far, I've got turnips (picture below), peas, spinach, radishes, and carrots sprouting in the garden, along with the some potatoes and onions.
 
I'm still waiting on the beets and parsnips. The cabbages, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and peas that mom planted have really started to grow. The lettuce on the east side of the house is growing slowly, but looking healthy. Except for my broccoli which germinated almost immediately, all my other seeds except for sage are just now coming on strong; cilantro, parsley, eggplant, basil, and chamomile.

With all the sun, I've been watering like crazy. Especially since we got that extra length of hose, so I can spray the garden directly using the wand, rather than fill up the watering cans, and walk another 20-30 yards to the garden. I am worried a little bit about using our tap water, because it's so hard, and a little salty, but all the seeds germinated using it, and I've talked to other people who've used it, so hopefully it'll be ok. I don't have much choice. We do have a barrel for collecting rainwater, but there's not enough of it, and there's no way to realistically transport it from the house to the garden.

All in all, I'm cautiously optimistic about the garden at this point. It's growing, and starting to take shape. I've already put a number of things in there, and I still have some transplants to put in after the first of June (if I can wait that long).