what i’ve planted:
- lettuces
- spinach
- herbs
what’s growing:
- tomatoes
- peppers
what’s left to be planted:
- squash
- green beans
- zucchini
- cucumbers
what i’ve been attempting to cook from lately:
p.s. no, we’re not vegetarians. but meat is expensive!
our area got a whole lot of rain at the beginning of april. which finally allowed our horrible looking yard to turn a rich shade of green. and to grow at an alarming rate. so the rain, plus a few other little distractions, made it hard for ross to get out and mow it for several weeks.
so then it looked like this:
but last weekend he finally got out to mow (and even got to “cheat” by borrowing our neighbor’s riding lawn mower – ours is a push mower, aka “would’ve taken 6 hours to mow”)
left: unmowed grass, right: mowed grass
and voila, the after. much better.
and now for a casual stroll around our yard. i love when our yard finally starts to come back to life.
grape hyacinths. we have them everywhere.
our one lone yellow tulip in the back mulch bed…
and the one lone daffodil right beside it. must plant more bulbs back there this fall so these two don’t seem so random. which right now, they are.
seedum, transplanted from the mother-in-law’s house a few years ago and growing really well.
more seedum. this stuff is so pretty for not having any flowers.
gratuitous puppy pic!
and in the front yard:
on either side of our front porch we have tulips, more grape hyacinths, and creeping phlox – since they’re all in bloom at the same time it really jazzes up the front of the house without me having to do any work. love me some perennials.
and tah-dahhhh! garden 2k11 has begun!
ross had a work thing up in roanoke earlier this week and was kind enough to buy me some pepper seedlings at the roanoke farmer’s market. these seedlings (red, yellow, and orange bell peppers) look soo much better than what i can usually get my pepper seedlings to look like and i’m A-OK with not growing them from seed this year.
all we did was transplant them from their plastic 4-pack into larger pots, where they’ll await their final transplant into the garden sometime in mid may. can’t wait.
and finally, i started my tomato seeds – the only seeds i’ll be growing under lights this year. everything else will get direct-seeded into the garden in may along with the peppers.
this year’s tomatoes: amish paste (like a roma), black cherry (a purpleish cherry), carbon (purple beefsteak), german red strawberry (red beefsteak), and moneymaker (small, very round red tomato).
gratuitous baby pic! our little future farmer (i told him we’d call him a farmer and not a gardener so he could sound more masculine – think that will convince him to help mom in the garden?)
1. my lunch, picked out of the garden this morning
2. my pepper and tomato seedlings, waiting for transplant.
3. my puppies
we’re quickly coming up on our last frost date, which means that the garden really starts to come alive. about a week and a half more.
of course, not everyone’s garden begins after the last frost. my goal is to eventually plant more cool weather plants in the future – like greens, lettuces, broccoli, asparagus, carrots, etc. this year i have spinach, lettuce, garlic, onions, and potatoes. nothing harvestable yet, but they seem to be filling in nicely.
successes:
- even though small, i’m already harvesting the little flat of lettuce i planted early. lettuces planted in the garden are filling in by the day
- last year’s strawberries are back and blooming. i can even see tiny little strawberry buds already
- the garden is weeded and filled in with new mulch
- i didn’t add any new boxes this year, so no extra construction was needed. this saves a lot of time
- the crocuses and tulips planted along the fenceline bloomed this year
- set up the seed shelves with grow lights and heat boxes on thermostats
- carrots, lettuce, spinach, potatoes, onions, and garlic have all sprouted!
- introducing about six types of flowers to the garden/yard this year. can’t wait for some pops of color in a usually very green space.
failures:
- my peppers and tomatoes aren’t doing so hot. after setting up my new seed shelves i was pretty confident that this year’s seedlings would be the best yet. and they’re not. i’m still not exactly sure why, but i’ve started transplanting some of the better looking seedlings into larger pots filled with the compost we had leftover from filling the garden boxes – so maybe they’ll perk up. tomatoes are my favorite veggie in the garden, so it’s very frustrating.
- accidentally planted my garlic into a bed thick with cover crop seeds – which means that now i’m having to go in by hand and weed out all the rye so that the garlic can breathe. this is taking a long time.
- reallly need a coldframe (would LOVE a hoophouse, to be honest) to a) start some plants early and b) boost the heat on some peppers to see if I can force them to get bigger before transplanting them out in the garden. i don’t think they’re really getting enough sun/heat during the day and therefore aren’t producing as much fruit as fast as they could be.
- not really a failure, more of a challenge for this year: my trellises. is the system i have the best? i’m going to be changing my trellising system for squash/zucchini/cucumbers/watermelon/pumpkins so it’ll be another experimental year for these plants.
so i always like to put my garden plan in writing. helps me keep track of things and learn from year to year. it also tends to overwhelm me with just how much i’m attempting to grow. below are all the seeds i’m hoping to get in the ground this year. everything in green is a new seed for 2K10.
garden::aug ’09
key: BC- baker creek; PT – pinetree seeds; SSE – seed saver’s exchange; B – burpee; G – gurney’s
asparagus:
Mary Washington – BC
root vegetables:
Muscade carrot – BC
Tendersweet carrot – PT
Fingerling potatoes – PT
Yukon Gold potatoes – PT
brassicas:
Romanesco Italia broccoli – BC
Belstar broccoli – PT
alliums:
Carentan leek – BC
Giant Flag leek – B
Flat of Italy onion – BC
Garlic
lettuces:
Little Gem – BC
Rocky Top Mix – BC
Black Seeded Simpson – BC
Buttercrunch – PT
Tom Thumb – BC
greens:
Bright Lights swiss chard – BC
Space spinach – PT
Bloomsdale Longstanding – BC
tomatoes:
Roma – G
Moneymaker – BC
German Red Strawberry – BC
Amish Paste – SSE
Green Sausage – BC
Green Zebra – BC
Carbon – BC
Sungold – PT
Wes – BC
Black Cherry – BC
Henderson’s Pink Ponderosa – BC
Roman Candle – BC
other nightshades:
Thai Yellow Egg eggplant – BC
peppers:
Patio Red Marconi – BC
Early Jalapeno – annie kay’s
Kaleidoscope Mix – PT
Orange Bell – BC
Red Belgian – BC
Golden Treasure – BC
herbs:
Chives – B
Sage – SSE
Stevia – SSE
French Thyme – PT
Oregano – PT
Cilantro – SSE and PT
English Lavender – SSE
Dill – BC
Genovese Basil – BC
Purple Dark Opal Basil – SSE
Lime Basil – BC and PT
legumes:
Lynx Bush Bean – PT
Bush Romano Green Bush Bean – PT
Pencil Pod Yellow Bush Bean – PT
Contender Bush Bean – BC
Greasy Grits – BC
cucurbits:
Diva cucumber – PT
Horn of Plenty summer squash – PT
Costada Romanesco zucchini – BC
Spaghetti squash – PT
Lemon squash – BC
Early Golden Summer Crookneck squash – BC
White Sugar Lump watermelon – BC
White Bush Scallop – BC
Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin – BC
also:
strawberries
If truth be told, even the insane amounts of gardening posts that I end up writing in a given year don’t fully do justice to the extent of my gardening obsession. For example, while I logged in a lot of blog hours during my week of Thanksgiving break, I spared you the fact that my sister-in-law and I spent a rainy afternoon poring over seed catalogs and choosing next year’s crop. I also didn’t mention that back in October, one of my anniversary presents from ross was a tall metal shelf and three flourescent lights – people, this is my kind of romantic – all for my seed shelf/grow lights setup that he knew i wanted. and finally, i didn’t tell you that we have since set up the shelves, ordered the final selection of seeds (and they’ve come in!), and constructued heating boxes (more on that in a separate post) all in time to plant my first round of seeds this past weekend (2/20).
I’m rounding up some pictures of the whole experience, so those will be coming soon, along with my seed list for this year (+ the addition of some flowers), some handy things we’ve learned along the way, and pictures of my very first sprouts that have already shown up. yeehaw, let the gardening begin.
because it’s so far away…
and because it’s right around the corner…
nothing amazing to report.
just that i’m so happy it’s friday.
and that i have no travelling or other set plans for the weekend; this is rare. and a treasure that is to be cherished.
to celebrate the occasion, i think the hubs and i are going to have a little music jamout session this evening. some dinner, maybe some wine. and if the weather report is true, i’ll be diving into the garden tomorrow morning: weeding, pulling up spent plants, and turning the compost pile. just clearing everything out for the winter and putting it properly to bed so that it can be ready again next spring. i’ve also got garlic to plant – the only fall garden item that i followed through on for this year. ah well, there’s always next time.
honestly, where has the summer gone? the most startling realization that fall was in fact approaching was on my way to work two weeks ago. my usual 60 mph speed (let’s be honest, if i can break 45 on the two-lane route of death, it’s a happy day) was disrupted – by the flashing school zone lights. SCHOOL is starting already! it’s ludicrous.
what’s also ludicrous is just how many pictures i’ve taken of the garden this year. but it’s a good thing too – because when i’m about to make the same mistake as this year by growing tomatoes nowhere near the vicinity of a trellis and am forced to prop them up in various embarrassing degrees of string and stake concoctions, i’ll have a picture to remind me.
so i took some iniative for the first time in ages and corralled them all into one place – well, at least i’m in the process of coralling them – and anyone with a large bit of time on their hands can hop on over here and see the whole process from barren chunk of weedy lawn, to “hey! i’ve grown something you can eat!”
the tomatoes are really coming in now, and as the next couple weeks may be their last hurrah (more on that below), i thought i’d introduce the cast .
Sungold. My first tomato to come in (on july 23rd) and now they’re coming out of my ears. An orange cherry that is very very sweet and easy to pop into salads or salsas.
Yellow Pear. Still a small tomato – more like a cherry tomato with a pear-like stem and a super bright yellow color.
Carbon – A purple beefsteak variety, and probably my most prolific grower (aside from the sungolds) Mine turned out a dusky red, with a little green at the top.
German Red Strawberry – At least, I think this is a German Red Strawberry. The labels I had in the ground got washed off before I could write down what I had planted where. It doesn’t fit the seed catalog description perfectly, but it’s the only large red variety i grew this year.
Roman Candle - Even though these look like yellow Roma tomatoes, I don’t think they’re related to the Roma. Romas are considered paste tomatoes, meaning they don’t have as much juice inside, making them better for tomato paste and tomato sauce. These are pretty juicy, but I love their shape and color.
Green Zebra – The tomatoes are actually meant to stay green. As they ripen, they get greenish yellow zig zag stripes.
Moneymaker - This was a variety I grew last year and I enjoyed them a lot. They’re not huge slicing tomatoes (only about the size of a ping pong ball) but they’re bright red and almost perfectly round.
Now for the bad news… my tomato plants have Late Blight. I would never have known what this was if I hadn’t been reading a few other garden blogs this season. basically, its a fungus that can spread from long distances through the wind and thrives in cool, wet conditions – our summer has been unseasonably wet (which i have never complained about until now) and presents as small brown patches on plant leaves and stems. if it infects the fruit, the fruit turn dark brown and shrivel up. there isn’t a cure, only uprooting the entire plant, wrapping it in plastic and throwing it away keeps the fungus from spreading. the fungus isn’t harmful to humans, so that’s the one upside – if i can keep it under control by cutting away bad parts, i can continue harvesting any unaffected fruit. since our tomato season can easily extend into october barring any big frosts, i’m pretty bummed at the thought of losing everything only 1 month into harvesting tomatoes. but everything else is looking good and i can always try again next year.
