The Aerogardens I set up late last year had some spinach, I got 3 or 4 small pickings of it, then it pretty much stopped. The 'trim and return' process doesn't seem to work well on spinach, it works much better on leafy lettuce. With my parsley, I'd whack it down and 3-4 days later I'd have plenty more coming up.

I didn't put any spinach in the new gardens. One garden has some parsley and 3 varieties of leaf lettuce, one of them a sample from Reimer seeds that hasn't germinated yet, and it's been two weeks. I'll give it a few more days then replant with a different variety. I'm trying some iceberg lettuce in the other garden, in 4 slots spaced about as far apart as they go, I started one the other day, I'll start the next one on day 6, then day 11 and then 16. I also put in a little more parsley, if the iceberg lettuce crowds it out that won't be a problem.

My tomatoes, eggplants and melons under the grow lights are doing very well, I started around 65 seed starter pots, I think about 60 of them germinated. I have cages for 24 tomato plants; last year I wound up planting a few that weren't in the best shape, but I only started 35 tomato plants last year, and not all germinated/survived. This year I started 42 tomatoes, 7 varieties, I think there were 3 that didn't germinate, but I could still get some late starters. I think all my melons germinated and all but one or two of the eggplants. I'm going to start the other half of the melons in another week or two.

I've already moved about a dozen seedlings into larger pots under a separate set of grow lights, I'll probably do some more later today.

This year it seems to be a late spring, but I generally don't plant in the garden until late May anyway, because I've been burned by mid-May cold snaps too many times. I may put in one set of melons ahead of then, just to see what happens.

We've had 2 1/2 inches of rain in the last week, after having nearly none for most of April. The grass, or what's left of it, is happy to see the rain.

I moved most of my plants (7 varieties of tomatoes, 2 varieties of eggplant and 2 varieties of cantaloupe) outside Sunday afternoon and will start planting them late this afternoon. There are some temps in the low 40's forecast for this weekend, but I think I'll risk it. I've already got soaker hoses set up winding through the garden.

My vegetable gardening is minor league compared to what my wife does every year with her flower pots. She bought about 10 flats worth of plants, including 5 leeks that we haven't decided whether to try them in a pot or in the ground somewhere.

I did half of the tomatoes last night, the rest this morning.

I didn't do any melons last year, and I did a lot more eggplants this year than last. I have 24 tomato cages, but I dropped several varieties from last year (including Mortgage Lifter and Brandywine) and did more of our favorites, including Italian Heirloom and Amish Paste. I also put in two Celebrity, which I didn't do last year.

I've already got soaker hoses running all through the garden, including where the melons and eggplants are, so I should be in good shape other than things like weeding. I'm hoping that the 4th of July will have some fruit ready by their namesake date.