This week made me wonder how anybody managed to survive growing their own sustenance.  Here is a little rant about what I am trying to overcome: 

After a good weekend (a week ago) of planting and garden maintenance… 

Monday night started things off with a frost that froze over 50 percent of the tomatoe plants I had set out (even after I had raced out and covered them all). 

The lettuce I planted basically failed to germinate (not exactly sure why; maybe to cold).   I’ll be planting more again soon.

The spinach came up in patches but I don’t have enough to take to market (plus something is eating parts of the leave, I think it’s the ants?)

The kale I planted had come up but got decimated by flea beetles and there are now no signs of growth.

The broad beans that were looking very healthy got struck down by cutworms.  The worms ate right through most of the plant stems just below the surface.  I’m not sure how many will survive even after I spent a full day digging in the soil and “removing” every cutworm I could find.

The bees have been attacked by ants and are under serious stress right now.  When I get a chance I’ll try and move them somewhere else.

Average night time temperatures are around 3-5 degrees with daytime highs barely reaching the 20′s making for slow growth and what appears to be poor germination (for me at least).

And to finish all that off it hailed; twice; yesterday; the first real moisture to come from the sky in about a month (and even that wasn’t very much).

That was the bad and ugly.  The good is I took one more step up the learning curve. 

That is farming.