The garden is in!

It is as hot and humid as late July outside! I worked out in the garden for about an hour and a half this morning and I finally had to come in. I can't take the heat! But the good news is all of my plants are in. I still need to plant the bush bean and pole bean seeds and I plan to toss a few pumpkin seeds on the compost pile and see if anything comes up. But the transplants are in. All total I spent exactly $50 on plants this year. I don't remember exactly what I spent on seeds, but I think it was in the neighborhood of $6 or so. I still need to buy supplies to make a cucumber trellis as well as bean and tomato supports, but expenses so far have been relatively low (thankfully!).

In the top picture today you can see how my two broccoli plants have grown since I put them in. Also, the nasturtiums I planted between the broccoli are up and growing. Behind the broccoli are the two cucumber plants I bought this weekend. I went back to the variety I tried two summers ago: Burpless Hybrid. They were long and skinny and the taste was the best I've ever tasted in a cucumber. I think my trellis-building will have to wait until after graduation next weekend. Oh, and also in this picture you can see the snow peas flowering and climbing up their trellis. The chives are still in bloom although I think the flowers are on their way out.


Take a look here at my root crops. The beets are really growing. And the green onions and carrots are starting to make a respectable showing.


Here are my hot peppers tucked in behind the flowering sage. I have planted one banana pepper, one poblano, two jalepeno, and four serrano. Also toward the back is a rosemary plant that I tucked into the only available spare place in the garden.


So here is the garden today. Jeff mowed the lawn this morning so I had him pile the grass clippings in the back. Once they cool off and start decomposing, I'll spread them around my plants (tomatoes first!) as mulch. Other things I've added to the garden today that I haven't mentioned yet are Beauregard sweet potatoes (twice as many as last year), two Italian oregano plants, two curly parsley plants, two butternut squash plants, and four Big Bertha sweet bell pepper plants.

Today's weather:
High temp 86 F
Low temp 65 F
Sunny with 10% humidity (which feel like a lot more than that if you ask me!)

My Garden is almost all planted

I have spent the better part of the last 3 days working in my garden and I almost have it all planted. I almost said I was almost done, but garden work is never really done. Anyway, it is going to have quite a different look this year. I am adding two things I didn't have much of last year: color and height. I have planted many flowers. You can see the yellow Tickseed in the near right corner along with the red geranium and purple violet I got for Mother's Day. My chives and sage are still blooming. And I have planted Cosmos, Nasturtiums, Marigolds, Indian Blankets, Bee Balm and flowering herbs like dill and anise hyssop. Those beneficial insects will be swarming! I also have the pea trellises (you can see the peas are now half-way up the trellises I built). There are several small peas popping out on the plants and they should be ready to pick in the next week or two. I also had my 7yo son help me build the 7 teepees for the pole beans in front.

Besides the flowers and herbs I already mentioned, here's a list of what I've planted this year:

* Tomatoes - Cherokee Purple (3)
* Tomatoes - Brandywines (2)
* Tomatoes - Roma (4)
* Tomatoes - Black Cherry (1)
* Tomatoes - Golden Nugget (1)
* Tomatoes - Green Zebra (1)
* Tomatoes - mystery (1) - I forgot by the time I got it home what it is
* Pepper - bell "Big Bertha" (4)
* Pepper - Sweet Banana peppers (4)
* Pepper - Habeneros (4)
* Pepper - Jalepenos (4)
* Eggplant - Black Beauty (3)
* Peas - approx. 80 plants
* Beans - green bush "Blue Lake" (1 row so far)
* Beans - black bush "Black Turtle" (2 rows)
* Beans - green pole "Kentucky Wonder" (63 plants)
* Corn - sweet yellow "Country Gentleman" (4 rows in a block)
* Cucumber - (forgot the variety) (2)
* Beets - Tall Top Early Wonder (2 rows)
* Radishes - Crimson Giant (1 row inside pea trellis)
* Lettuce - mixture (1 row inside pea trellis)
* Broccoli - (1)
* Cauliflower - (4)
* Cabbage - (2)
* Garlic - (4)

I have to admit, I've bought Beauregard Sweet Potatoes, but they have been on the bottom of my priority list and I'm too exhausted to put them in tonight. But I will do it tomorrow definitely!

Here are some more photos I took today:
Sage in bloom.

Pea trellis with plants growing half-way up to the top. Also the sage is a lot bigger in this photo than the last one I took.

My one surviving broccoli plant. I don't know if it will produce much to eat, but isn't it pretty?

One of my eggplants. This photo shows two things I've done to organically help along my garden. First, I used bathroom dixie cups with their bottoms cut out to make cutworm collars for my eggplants. This should prevent cutworms from severing the stem at the surface of the ground while the plant is young and vulnerable. Also, I am mulching all of my established plants with grass clippings from lawnmowing. It does an amazing job of keeping the soil moist as the sun is already beating down on us. Unmulched soil is caked and cracked like concrete. But when I scraped away the grass clippings just next to the cracked soil, it was cool and moist and loamy. Perfect!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 78 F
Low temp: 58 F
Sunny and warm

My garden is ready!

Here's a picture of my garden this morning. I spent hours yesterday working in it getting the last of the mulch out (9 more bags did it, for those of you keeping track). I also dug in the last of the composted cow manure. Well, most of it. You can see in the front left bed that I got the manure spread out but it didn't get dug in. By the time I got to that point yesterday around 6pm, my back and legs were calling foul. I could barely move so I thought I should stop. I had also intended to plant my sweet corn and bush beans, but I didn't get to that yet. Hopefully I'll do that either tonight or tomorrow night.

The large yellow flower is actually my collard greens leftover from last fall. They are about 5 feet tall now and covered with pretty yellow flowers. Just behind them are a couple of chive plants that are full of little round purple blossoms.

Also, in this picture you can see how my peas are growing right up the mesh on the trellises just the way they're supposed to. In front of this trellis is one of my sage plants. The sage is covered with purple buds about to burst open.


Today's local weather:
High temp: 66 F
Low temp: 44 F
Sunny with a little breeze

Busy weekend

We started off Saturday morning with a trip to the local nursery. Local gardening wisdom is that you wait until Mother's Day to plant and with this being Mother's Day weekend, the nursery was packed. And it is a fairly large nursery so the amount and variety of plants was a little overwhelming to me. Fortunately, we went there with specific things in mind to help us focus. If we hadn't, we might have been there all day!


Here are two of the eight tomato plants I bought. These two are Romas. We also bought two Cherokee Purples, two Better Boy, and two Beef Hearts.


I also bought five herb plants. In this picture are the basil, chives, and cilantro. I also bought sage and thyme. These are all in the two herb beds that border my back porch. It's close to my kitchen for easy cooking access.


And look at these! These are some of the Red Norland potatoes I planted three weeks ago. I've got tons coming up. A few of my Irish Cobbler potatoes are also coming up although they are a later variety. I need to add some soil to the sides of these plants. That's on today's "to-do" list after I get my errands finished.

I also transplanted 13 bell pepper plant seedlings (yeah, I know it is a lot, but I assume some of them will die). I transplanted two cucumber plants. I also planted my second succession planting of lettuces, spinach, carrots, and green onions.

Jeff added mulch to the walking paths in the garden. It looks so much more attractive now and hopefully the moisture and temperature will be more controlled. We had wanted to use straw instead of a hardwood mulch, but it is almost impossible to find it this time of year. We decided we are probably going to go no-till anyway from now on, so these walking paths will be walking paths in the future. I realize with hardwood mulch there is a risk of it decomposing and leaching nitrogen from the soil, but we'll keep a close eye on it. I'd like to add mulch around the base of some plants, but I'm not sure what to use that won't hurt the plants. And even if I figure it out, I'm not sure where to buy things that are more organic. Most of the stores around here carry only your traditional (i.e. non-organic supplies). I have work to do.

It rained all day yesterday after I got the plants in on Saturday so they should be off to a good start!

Today's local weather:
High temp: 63 F
Low temp: 46 F
Sunny and breezy