Wow!  Looking at the pictures from my last post, and looking at today’s garden- so much growth and change in just ten days!  Gardening is incredible!  Since I last posted, we’ve had salad after salad from the assorted lettuces, spinach, and baby chard in the garden.  Good thing we did, because the spinach is bolting.  For now, I’m letting it go to seed- I’ve never done so, and am curious how long that process takes.   Andy also enjoyed all the radishes, so lettuce has been sown in that spot, and the turnips were also pulled out.  I had pulled two baby turnips to see how they were doing… wow, they were hot and bitter and unpleasant.  With it warming up outside, I decided to give that real estate to someone else.  So I pulled what was there, and sowed a mesclun salad blend.   I may try turnips again as a fall crop.

But the biggest change in ten days is that Andy brought me some fresh straw to mulch between the beds with.  It looks incredible, as you’ll see in the picture tour below.  I have not been to the community plot once this week.  I really need to get over there, but the weather has not been cooperating.

Today’s pictures have not uploaded in order.

First a close up of Mr. Fatalii.  Peppers galore.  I still have a quart of these in the freezer from last fall.

And then a bowl of garlic scapes.  This is my second harvest of these this week.  The first round I turned into pesto and tossed with homemade noodles.  So delicious.  This is a bigger bunch than what I harvested earlier this week.

 

The basil and dill.  Not dead, but not thriving either.  Today I fed them some Tomato Tone.  Ideally I should get some compost worked in here.  But at least they’re still growing.

 

The tomatillos are doing great!! One of my plants has flowers, and at least a dozen more buds waiting to blossom.

 

They’re still pretty small plants, but they took to their new home instantly.

 

Ah.  A nice view of the home tomato patch.  You can see my straw in here- as well as the healthy green tomato plants.  Quite a few are sporting blossoms already!   So far they also all have very strong main stems.  Nothing is flopping over looking for support.  I’ll need to get on that soon, but so far, the patch is doing amazing!

 

The garlic patch, sans the scapes.  Some of the very bottoms are just starting to turn brown.  That means the countdown begins for the garlic harvest!  I expect to pull the bulbs sometime in July.

 

Let’s see.  This is the bean bed.  With the eggplant in the front right corner there.  Something keeps nibbling on the eggplants- I suspect mice, as we had some in the garage.  But keeping them sprayed with hot pepper spray and cayenne pepper powder seems to be helping a lot.   If only it would stop raining and washing those off!  Some of the beans have been slow to germinate, but they’re doing well for the most part.  One of the purple jalapenos in here is loaded with buds about to blossom.

 

Here you can see where the turnips were.  Hopefully pulling those turnips out will encourage the scrawny carrots.  This was where I planted the mesclun mix.   You can also see the blue hubbard squash on the far left really taking off.  I think I need to go out and actually tie some of the plants to the support to encourage them to grow in that direction.  The lima beans are also doing well- I have a close-up a little further on.

 

The patch that almost wasn’t.  On the left you see the scallions, then the celery, then some leeks, and then the monster broccoli plants.  behind the broccoli are a few red kale plants that are chugging along as well.

 

But what’s this?  Actual broccoli!!  Three of the plants are sporting heads- one of them looks about ready to harvest.

 

And here are one of the zucchini plants- doing great!

 

Ah, the snap peas.  We are treading a fine line here with these.  They finally have started putting out blossoms, but the bottoms are starting to turn brown.  It will be a race to see if we can get a taste of peas before the vines succumb to the heat.  Fortunately, we’ve had a cool couple of days here, so that should help a bit.  The chard, carrots and beets in front of the peas are doing great.  Still no bulbs on the beets though, I’m watching for that.

 

Here you can see where the radishes were.  Some of the lettuce I put in here this week is just starting to sprout.  The spinach is in the middle- already sporting flowers on some of the plants.  That didn’t last long.  The carrots in this bed are doing well- as is the butternut squash on the far left end.

 

A backside view of the same bed.  You can see the cucumbers there along this edge next to the trellis.  Every 12 inches is a different variety of cucumber.  This is been a battle with squirrels to keep here.  They keep wanting to dig here, so I keep sprinkling the cayenne.  I think I’m winning…

 

And here is the back of the pea bed.  You can see the beginning browning of the peas with this angle.  Also, to the left of the peas are three more varieties of cucumber.  I sure hope they do well this year!  I have some really unique varieties that I am dying to try out.

 

Tomato blossoms.  🙂  This just happens to be my German Red Strawberry plant.  Loaded!

 

Oh, here is the close-up of the lima beans next to the hubbard squash.  The lima bean plants are putting out these long tendrils… The package said they were a bush habit variety, and I’m leaning towards not believing that.  I have to decide quick what to do.  The first step will be to tie the squash to its trellis- I will use some of my daughters dance tights that are full of holes.  Super strong, but gentle on the plant.  Then I think I’m going to need to get some poles or something in for the lima beans- I’d really like to see them do something!

 

And it looks like we wrap up today’s tour with another shot of Mr. Fatalii.  The leaves don’t look this yellow in person.  There are probably hundreds of buds on here waiting to open up.  It’s turning into a tree!

 

 

I love how fast everything changes this time of year.  🙂  And it’s been pretty incredible to be eating salads from the garden that has only been growing for a little over a month now.  It’s amazing how nature catches up to where it’s supposed to be growth wise.

We may have been delayed in our spring here in the north, but the growth in the garden is more than making up for it!  I’ve never had a beginning to the growing season like this year, and I sure have high hopes that it continues.  Every single tomato plant that I’ve put in the ground this year is thriving and looking amazingly well- I’ve never had that happen.  I always assume that a handful are not going to like being transplanted.  That is not the case this year.  In fact, one tomato that I didn’t plant because it was harmed a few weeks ago and was on it’s way out has surprised me this week by sprouting leaves on a pathetic stem.  I’m keeping an eye on him and will find ground space in the next week or so if he continues making a comeback.

But lets get to the pictures, shall we?

Here’s an overview of the six beds from the gate.  This makes me so happy!! Just over a week ago we had company visiting and they asked what I had in the garden this year.  My simple answer was “Food!”  Look at all this luscious green stuff just beckoning to be eaten.   I have lettuces, spinach and radishes that are ready to eat now- the lettuces in baby stage.  In the next few days we will enjoy the first salad from the garden.

Next, I had to get creative in the garden when I realized I forgot to plant some summer squash or zucchini.  Last year I tried planting those in my community plot where they were quickly eaten by critters.  I’d already filled my beds- and really, I didn’t want to put a large zucchini plant in the beds to take up that valuable real estate.  So instead, I put two mounds between two different beds towards the ends.  There’s enough room for them to grow, and I can still get around them.  Both mounds have sprouts, so I’m very hopeful of a nice harvest this year.  I have two different varieties that are supposed to trend toward the bush size.  We’ll see how that works out. I put cages around the mounds simply so that no one accidentally steps on the mounds as they’re growing.  You can also see some of the many weeds growing between the beds.  One of these days I need to do some work there, and next year I’m hoping for a nice layer of mulch.  But in the meantime, they’re really not harming anything.

 

 

Next, here on the right you can see how the garlic patch has exploded!  Our family is very, very excited about this piece of garden.  A little later I have a picture of a garlic scape, as they’re starting to peek out. On the left is the first bed I planted.  Guess my broccoli, kale, leeks and celery have survived after all!  The scallions are slow to grow, but they are making the effort.

 

This next bed is the bean bed.  Five varieties of bush beans are planted, and most of them have come up.  There are also four eggplant and three jalapenos close to us.  Most of my peppers went to the community plot, but I wanted a few jalapenos here at home for ease at getting them when I just want one for a dish.  Something was nibbling on my eggplants when I first planted them, but I’ve been spraying them with a lovely super hot pepper spray and they haven’t been nibbled since.

*Note: When spraying a homemade super hot pepper spray, be sure to stand upwind when spraying plants.

 

Next I have my wintered-over fatalii enjoying the deck.  He needs some TLC, but is doing well.

 

See?  Super hot Fatalii peppers!  I also have 3 red versions of this plant in the commuity plot.

 

Here is my impromtu herb bed.  This is in front of our deck, and has been the home to Andy’s grills since we moved in.  Last week I took the time to pull out most of the weeds, and since I had these basil plants that needed a home, it seemed like a natural place.  Ultimately, I would love to fill in with all kinds of herbs, I just am short on resources to do so now.  It also needs some compost worked in, but I am happy with what I have.  The ferny-fluffy looking plant is some bouquet dill that had been languising in a pot.   I do have more herbs in planters on the deck.  I have mint, parsley, pineapple sage and chives growing up there.

 

Back to the garden.  🙂  Here is the bed that has my lettuce in it.  Three varities of lettuce, some turnips, some carrots that are not doing so hot, and lima beans towards the left.  On the very far left are my Blue Hubbard Squash.  You can see a hint of the red trellis that leans onto the garage for the squash to climb up.  I’m really hopeful that this experiment works out!  The turnips are turning out to be a little large to be with the lettuces, but so far everything is doing okay.

 

Next, two different views of the tomato patch.  They ended up spaced together a little closer than I had originally planned, but once I started putting them out, it just kind of happened.  52 plants total here at home.  I plan to use the Florida Weave to support them as they grow.  I’ll start working on that in the next few weeks.  Every plant is looking healthy and happy to be in the ground.

 

This garden bed is home to my snap peas, swiss chard, beets and some carrots.  Oh, and several varieties of cucumber, which are growing by the trellis to the right of the peas.  Overall, I’m disappointed with the carrots in my gardens.  None of them are really doing great.  We’ll get some, but not the abundance I had actually planted.  Not sure why that is- I’m thinking I need to sow a little more heavily.

 

Here is a garlic scape.  I am waiting for a few more to poke out and then I am going to clip them and make a garlic scape pesto to toss with homemade pasta.  Removing the scape encourages the garlic to concentrate its growing efforts on the bulb under the ground.

 

This bed below has radishes, spinach, carrots, butternut squash to the far left, and the backside from here is end-to-end cucumbers.  Six different varieties in this bed, plus three in the other bed mean nine varieties of slicing cucumbers.  We cannot wait to start comparing them all!  Yesterday I had to pull out one of my varieties of radish, as they were starting to bolt with no radish growing underground.  The French Breakfast radishes are doing great, but for some reason the Cherry Belle’s have found it too warm.  I removed them and sowed a small patch of Romaine Lettuce instead.  The carrots in this bed are probably the healthiest that I’ve planted, but still not doing crazy well.  One of my spinach plants is also starting to flower.  I’m completely baffled, because it’s not been hot yet.  Unfortunately, I did not write down which variety I planted.

 

And finally today, I have the tomatillo patch.  I have SIX tomatillo plants in the ground- half of them are green and half of them are the purple variety.  They were the happiest plants I had ever seen when I planted them in the dirt.  Almost instantly they started shooting up and producing more leaves.  We recently discovered that Zander loves green salsa, so he’s very excited to see these plants which will produce an abundance of tomatillos for salsa verde this summer.

Soon I’ll get the camera over to the community garden.  I still have space over there for planting, but am unsure what I am going to do with it.   I have 16 tomato plants there, all my pepppers, about ten cabbage plants, and my pole beans.  Onions may be a good choice if I can still find plants somewhere.  We’ll see.  I’m trying to avoid fencing my whole plot- we’ll see how that works this year.   It’s been a huge effort over there to get the weeds removed and get things planted, but it’s a work in progress.  I keep eyeing up the plot next to mine and wondering if I could keep up with two plots should the opportunity come up.

We’re finally starting to see things come together in the garden.  A few weeks ago The Hubby took advantage of some beautiful weather and started finishing up cleaning out the garden and getting my beds built.  When he hauled a load of brush to the city dumping site, he discovered a full pile of ready-to-use compost.  Hooray for me!  He quickly hurried home, hooked up the trailer and went and picked up a load.  It was a ton of work on his part, but two trailer loads later, I have six full garden beds.  I was really stressing about how we were going to find the funds to fill these beds this year.  Free city compost?  I’ll take it!  Here you can see four of the six beds.

I promptly took out my tray of WAY past needing to be planted leeks, broccoli, and celery and stuck them in the dirt.  They’re not doing very well, and I’m debating pulling them out.  I took time right away to sow seed for a bunch of lettuces, carrots, snap peas, scallions, turnips, beets, chard and radishes.  I left plenty of room for cucumbers, beans and another sowing of lettuce.   I’ve pretty much decided that all of my cole crops- the broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and kale are going to go in my community garden plot.  I’m hoping that the critters will leave them alone over there.   I still need to get over there and assess how much work I need to put in to get it ready for planting.  The road it is on is under construction and closed to thru traffic, so I’m not sure how best to get there.

My garlic is doing great!

I was worried that the cold winter was going to doom my garlic crop this year, but it seems that all is well.  I am having troubles with squirrels digging in here though.  The newly planted garden beds are covered with bird netting to keep the squirrels out, but I can’t put that on here without making a cage for it of sorts.   I’m seriously considering getting some of my hot fatalii peppers out of the freezer, blending some up and making a squirrel repellant spray.   Other than that, my only issue with the garlic is that I am very afraid that I may have lost my map.  I have ten different varieties in here… I would really like to know what is what when I harvest it.  I would say I have about 100% germination here- that is roughly 100 bulbs of garlic.  That may actually be enough for me for a year of garlic eating.  Maybe.

Cold weather is still in the area- there is a frost advisory tonight, I believe, so still to early to consider planting out the peppers and tomatoes.   They’re thriving in their sunny window though!  Perhaps next week I’ll start the process of hardening them off.

Last year’s gardening season was… wonky at best.   We had to move suddenly- after I’d already planted a bed (thank goodness it was only one bed!) and I dove into the exploration of community garden.  Thank God for the community garden plot!  For a small pittance, I now have a 20×25 garden space for as long as I wish.  (And as long as I keep paying the annual fee, of course.)

As I’ve been starting seeds and making my plans- and watching my new home gardens come to fruition- I’m finding my memories of things are getting a little fuzzy.  Back when I grew 15 or 20 varieties of heirloom tomato, it was easy to keep track of my favorites.  Now I have seed for over 100 varieties- and they’re starting to blur together a bit.

Add to that a bizarre obsession with peppers too hot for anyone to eat. (40+ varieties of pepper seed, hot and sweet and everything inbetween.)

Plus a new affinity for eggplant.

And herbs.

And a sincere desire to really garden and produce food to put by this year.

I decided I needed to resurrect this blog.  It’s supposed to be my journal, so I can look back next year and see what was successful, and what was not.  See what I need to change- what varieties perform better than expected, and what I should never, ever grow again.

I hope some of these posts will be picture heavy, but more than that, I truly desire to be an inspiration.  Even if it’s a small pot of herbs on a back porch- gardening for food has so many rewards and benefits.

Have you gone grocery shopping lately? Everything is going up and up- and showing no signs of slowing down.  Meat prices have skyrocketed, leading many people to at least partially explore meat-free eating.  I am all over that, but even the produce is going up in unexpected increments.  And for good reason.

As the state of California continues to experience a drought, it’s no wonder prices are climbing!  I read the other day that 40% of the state’s avocado farms are being told to allow their fields to go fallow this year for want of water.  Our country relies on California for much of our produce.  In particular, I know we get a lot of our celery, broccoli and salad greens from California year-round.   It’s the dust-bowl of the 1930’s people- real life and in front of us.

In a different direction, we rely heavily on Florida and Georgia for strawberries, peaches, citrus and tomatoes.  They are currently experiencing flooding that hasn’t been seen in ages.  Those beautiful Florida strawberries are going to be at a premium in no time!  Late frosts/freezes have been hampering the efforts of many orchards across the south.

I know here in my home state, the unrelenting cold this winter has not been kind.  Wineries are planning to spend 2014 attempting to coax growth out of severely damaged grapevines- putting the winemaking on hold this year.

So while all these food prices continue to climb for very valid reasons, a packet of seeds still costs a very small amount.  One packet of carrot seed, for example, has the potential to produce more carrots than my family could possibly eat in a year.   One packet of lettuce seed could produce enough lettuce to keep an entire village in lettuce for months on end.

If there was ever a year to consider a vegetable garden, this would be it.   Here in Central Wisconsin, we’re still looking at chilling temperatures- the real garden season is still weeks away.  I don’t expect to get much planted before Memorial Day this year- the threat of cold and frost is just still too much.

So I’ll leave you today with a picture of the most important part of my garden this time of year- The Growroom. Simply the patio door end of my dining room, there is JUST enough room for all my starts to bask in the sunshine.  Provided we get sunshine.

Here you see on the far left my Fatalii hot pepper plant that I wintered over this year.  That was a huge success, and I’ll detail more on that another time.  You can also see two different sets of wire shelving, holding all my flats of tomato, pepper and eggplant starts.  On the bottom there is my pop bottle garden.  This worked great for starting herbs- not sure it’s a good solution for greens though.  On the far right are my indoor tomato projects.  The one in the red cage is a dwarf-that-is-not that I’m growing out for a buddy.  The one on the bamboo pole is actually what is left of my WildThyme GWR plant from last year.  I accidentally snapped off a branch in the garden, so I brought it in the house and rooted it.  It gave me one small tomato over the winter, so I was going to let it die, but then it surprised me by suddenly starting to thrive, pushing blossoms, and now there’s a tomato growing on it.   It’s starting to really take over the space though.  Hopefully it will make it a few more weeks and I can get it outside and see how it does.

Soon it will be time to work outside.  Not soon enough for my taste, but it will happen, and I really can’t wait for it this year.

 

*Hangs head in shame*

Overdue, because freezing overnight temperatures have pretty much brought gardening season to an end, and this sad garden journal has really been neglected.  I guess that means I’ve been too busy to sit down with my notes, but that’s not 100% the truth.  Anyway,  I have some thoughts and pictures to share about the gardening behind me this year.

First, Mr. Ghost Pepper.  I had to grow this one.  Had to!  Andy and I had watched a few episodes of Heat Seekers on the Food Network, and they were frequently encountering dishes with the ghost pepper in it.  They would eat these foods and end up in tears because they were so hot.  I was intrigued as to why anyone would want to eat these peppers.  And then, on an episode of Top Chef, a winning dish used one ghost pepper, and got huge raves from everyone tasting.  I instantly became curious about this pepper.  Surely it had some kind of flavors in it aside from the extreme heat.

I was gifted a small pack of seeds, and was very excited, but also afraid to see what all the fuss was about.  My plants grew well, and I found that these did well both in the ground and in a pot.  I could tell no difference, really between the two, as I had two plants in the garden and two in pots.  When I finally had red peppers, it was with serious trepidation that I harvested one to float in a batch of salsa.  Seriously.  I picked that pepper with rubber gloves on- and I used some tongs to handle it.  A knife cut a few slits and in it went to the salsa.  I was so worried about getting affected by the capsaicin in these things!

The first batch of salsa turned out great- really tasty, but suprisingly little heat.  Some, but I also used plenty of other hot peppers.   There was an underlying tropical flavor though that isn’t normally present in my salsa.  I was intrigued and wanted to take it a step further.  So I chopped up one ghost pepper very finely and made a batch of salsa with that.  That may be one of my best flavored salsas I’ve ever had.  There is still some heat, but it’s not the tear inducing heat that I was anticipating from this ghost pepper.  The flavor, though, is spectacular, there really is a reason people want to eat ghost peppers.  In fact, when you cut into one you can smell this amazing floral-tropical fragrance, and you really do want to bite into it.

I have not tasted a ghost straight up.  And I don’t intend to.  The plants themselves are very productive, and I ended the season with a pile of ghost peppers, and no plans for them.  In fact I easily ended up with about two gallons of hot peppers, and nothing to do with them.  It was a good year for peppers.  Overall, though, the ghost pepper is a keeper.  It should still be treated with care, after all the scoville units are through the roof, but it turns out there IS a way to tame the heat- and that’s what I was after.  I think I will always endeavor to have one ghost in the garden.

Potatoes, on the other hand, are a completely different story.  I was so excited to try potatoes this year, because I’ve heard that they are such an effortless vegetable.   I did everything I was supposed to, and my harvest was absolutely dismal.  I planted 12 plants, and ended up with this harvest:

No lie.  The tiniest handful of potatoes ever- and this was two varieties, Kennebec and Fingerlings.   I made a baked potato pizza with them- which turned out great, but all I could think was that this was a huge waste of growing space and good compost.  I don’t know what went wrong, and part of the problem could be the potatoes we started with.  I ordered them from a Wisconsin company- thinking that climate appropriate potatoes would be best.  But when they arrived, the potato pieces were covered with mold, along with a note saying that the mold was harmless.  Now, my plants did grow.  The plants themselves grew great- there were just no tubers in the dirt.  The two people I shared my potatoes with also had dismal crops, so I don’t know what to say about them.  According to what I’d read, the quantity of potatoes I’d planted should have amounted to a good fifty pounds of potatoes- which is about what we would go through in four months time.  To have one pizza to show for my efforts?

So I doubt I’ll be growing potatoes again.  At least while we are where we are with limited space.  As it is, right now I’m eyeballing the potato patch for an onion patch.  I’m determined to figure out how to grow those this next year.  This year for my salsa making, the only produce I needed to buy was onions and cilantro.  Now, growing cilantro is silly to me, when I can buy a ton of it for just sixty-nine cents.  And onions ARE inexpensive, but I’d love to be able to make my salsa with all homegrown vegetables.  I just haven’t had luck getting my onions to bulb up.

Though, I will confess, I have been reading up on SWEET potatoes, and am a little tempted in that direction too.

It’s been a crazy spring here, and I must get better about updating here.  After all, this is my garden journal, and keeping notes in my head is NOT the ideal way to remember year after year.

Warning: This WILL be a picture-heavy and long post.  I hope you don’t mind.

We had our early spring warm up in March this year.  I promptly tucked seed into the ground.  I sowed radishes, lettuces, spinach, chard, peas, broccoli raab, and carrots.  Then it got chilly, we had freezing nights, frost, etc, but my seedlings soldiered on.  At the end of April I was feeling like sowing seed early hadn’t really been worth it.  Now I’m singing a different tune!  We enjoyed radishes in salads in early May!  We’ve been eating salads with homegrown lettuces and spinach for weeks now.  They’ve been delicious, varied, and free from the ground.  The shelling peas did poorly- I must need new seed.  The snap peas we will be harvesting this week, as the plants are suddenly loaded with burgeoning peas.  The Broccoli Raab I missed once again.  You really have to keep an eye on that one, because one day it’s ready to harvest, and the next it is in full flower.  I may try a fall harvest of that one, since it grows so fast.

Here is a picture of Garden Bed #1:

Look at those lettuces! We’ll be munching it a lot this week, as this past weekend’s heat seems to have rendered many of them pretty dang close to bolting.   The carrots are mixed in with the lettuces and look like they’re doing great based on the tops.  At the back you can see my bamboo poles sticking up.  Last week I pulled the last of the spinach and the two shelling pea plants as they were already finished.  In this space I sowed some pole beans and more romaine lettuce. No sprouts yet- any day now.

Bed #2:

At the back of the bed you can see the wall of snap peas.  The kids are SO excited about these ones.  The red you see in the middle is actually a trellis.  On either side of it I have planted slicing cucumbers along the trellis, and then bush beans to the right and the left.  The four feet of bed closest to us are the sweet pepper plants.  This bed is doing well, although I did lose one pepper plant to a squirrel digging.  After the peas have been harvested, that wall of plant will be removed, and I will attempt growing a watermelon and a cantaloupe on the pea trellis.  The kids wanted the plants from the garden center, and who was I to say no? Maybe this will be the year we have juicy melon from our own garden.

Bed #3 has been converted to a tomato and eggplant bed:

It’s doing really well.  I planted my tomatoes a few weeks early this year- I’d barely hardened them off even, but they’ve been thriving ever since.  I only had a few casualties after planting- and those were really sickly as it was.  This week Andy will be installing poles so that I can use the Florida Weave as support for this bed.  The eggplants are doing okay… I had a pretty awful aphid infestation and they went to town on the eggplants.  I actually sprayed a pesticide, which seems to have taken care of the problem, thankfully.  I’m usually against such things, but by golly, I want my vegetables.  Plus, by the time these are actually fruiting there shouldn’t be a trace of pesticide anywhere.

Here is a close-up of my Malakite Box tomato plant.  It’s massive.  I’ve never had a main stem as fat as the one on this plant- easily the diameter of a quarter. The blossoms on it are massive.  I am drooling just thinking about these tomatoes!  As of right now, I have never had tomato plants so healthy and vibrant looking.  I’ll get a better photo later- I was dodging the sprinkler.

Here is Bed #4:

This is the hot pepper bed, which you can see closest to us. At the back I have pole beans planted at the red trellises.  I also did one side of cucumbers- we’ll see how those do.  Between the trellises and peppers on the right is a brassica patch.  I sowed broccoli, two types of kale and brussels sprouts from seed.  The kales are looking great, we’ll see how the others do.  On the left I have a good six feet of additional carrot seed sown.  In between the bean trellises I sowed extra chard seeds and lettuce seeds- and those seem to be taking off too.  I wanted to maximize my growing space this year.

On to the Potato Patch!

This is brand new to me.  I have half of this space planted with Kennebec, and half with Fingerlings.  It’s a cinder-block bed, which I’m rather liking the look of.  Andy literally threw this together- and you’ll have to forgive the debris laying about, as gardening has been done on the fly this year.  I think I would like to see this patch raised up one more level of block, but then Andy will probably have to re-do it after the potatoes are done.  I also want to plant the actual holes of cinder-block with chives.  Both garlic and regular- I think that would be the perfect thing to utilize those small squares for.

On to some new additions to the garden this year!  Andy built me two new raised beds just for tomatoes.  This is the sunniest part of the yard, so we wanted to see how tomatoes would fare here.

This first bed is where I have planted cherry tomatoes and determinates.   I’ll get into more details about tomato varieties in another post, but if all goes well, I will literally have a rainbow of cherry tomatoes.  I have red, yellow, green, orange and white cherry tomatoes planted, as well as some yellow pears.  The determinates are doing great- one of my Earlinorth plants is already loaded with blossoms.  Here’s a picture of him:

This next bed is also just for tomatoes.

In this bed I have some dwarfs planted, and then a real variety of heirlooms.  In  both of these tomato beds, Andy has installed soaker hoses, and that seems to be working really well to water these plants.  It took a bit of configuring to make sure the hoses hit all the plants, but it looks good right now.  Both of these beds will also be altered this week for utilizing the Florida Weave.   All told I have over 70 tomato plants that are alive and healthy.

In front of the tomatoes is the Garlic Patch, also a first for me:

This bed is loaded with weeds, but I was afraid to pull them out, for fear that they would disturb the growing garlic.  I never saw any scapes, and the stalks have just started turning brown.  I guess I’m supposed to wait for them to turn brown about 2/3 of the way, and then I can check a bulb to see if it’s ready for harvest.  I anticipate that will be in July.

Continuing around the yard, here are my Ghost Peppers in pots:

I also have two of those in the garden proper.   I wanted one for sure in the pot so that if they’re not ready before fall freeze, I can bring a pot inside.

Here are the Tomatillos and a rogue raspberry plant:

The large tomatillo I started from seed, but I only had one take off.  Tomatillos need a partner to produce, so I bought a second plant from the garden center.  It’s so much smaller, but already pushing blossoms, so hopefully we’ll start seeing some pollination soon.  The rogue raspberry we’ll see about.  I think it’s a black raspberry, actually, but it appeared out of nowhere.

Here are my Zucchini plants:

I started them with the ice cream pails to keep the rabbits from eating them.  They’re just too big for my raised beds.  They’re doing well enough that I’m already nervous about having so many zucchini.  Also on Andy’s agenda this week is building me a cage so I can take the buckets off.  As you can see from the one on the right,  they are ready to have the buckets off- though the buckets did work great at keeping the rabbits away from the tender sprouts.  I’m unsure at what point my plants would be considered safe from harm, so Andy will cage them.

And lastly today, here is one photo of some of the herbs:

What you can see here left to right is some Green Onions from last year,  Lovage, Sage and Lemon Thyme.  The Lovage is absolutely massive.  These all came back from last year.  I also have regular Thyme and some basil, as well as parsley in the lettuce bed, as the rabbits are too fond of that one.  I need to pick up more basil plants yet and make a note to start more basil plants next year.

Note: Start more basil plants next year.

So the garden is looking well.  We sure could use some rain, but the sprinkler and soaker hoses do seem to be doing a good job keeping everything going.   I’ll get into more detail about a few things soon- especially the tomatoes.

My dwarf tomato is doing beautifully.  It’s really happy in my window, even though we’ve had more grey and gloomy days than sunny days.   I really like the pot it’s in too- bottom watering is great!

My ghost peppers have finally sprung forth.

I was so excited when I saw a sprout finally start poking out, only to have it quickly joined by seven others.  I swear, I planted seven seeds, and I have eight peppers.   I have plans to put two in my garden, one plant in a pot, one plant goes to my dad, one plant is to give to a friend… but beyond that… I have three plants that are going to need homes.  I feel like I need to be responsible with these peppers- I don’t want to give them to anyone with pets, or with small children who could be curious.  The heat of these ghost peppers can be painful… So we’ll see where these end up.

I also have some Thai Basil sprouting up.

I’m really anxious to start garden planning!  I have all the tomato seed I’m going to get.  I think.  I still have two seed orders to put in, as I have plans to grow a lot of beans and lettuce this year.  I have at least six different varieties of romaine that I want to try, as romaine is our favorite lettuce.  I can’t tell you how many kinds of beans I have- mostly pole beans, but some bush beans.

And eggplant.  I’ve remembered that I want a few eggplants this year, so I have a few new, small varieties to start.

I’m excited!  I didn’t even come close to maximizing the potential of my garden this past year.  I’ll be able to harvest from my rhubarb plant as soon as it produces, and I’m excited to see what the blackberries, raspberries and asparagus do.   I definitely have some dirt amending to do in the raised beds, so that will need some attention first thing.

It’s going to be a very good, very productive year.  I’ll be going through seeds in the next week or so here.  It will be something to do while we wait for warm weather.