Planting update

We got a few things in last fall, but really neglected the garden. So we are eating some collards tonight that grew and there is some red leaf lettuce we grew from seedlings that can be eaten soon. But, that's it.
Oh and there is some chard growing, but I'm not sure from which planting. I kind of threw seeds in the ground throughout the winter.
Oh, we did plant plant fava beans in October I think. They are about two feet high right now and doing great. Will keep letting them grop.
Today, we planted peas, carrots and a few more beets. Will post again to see how they are doing.
We will probably do a second row of peas in a couple of weeks.

update

Well, the shelling peas went in a little late. We did not get much out of them. Next year, we'll aim about one month earlier. However, the artichokes look great as you can see here:

So that is fun. We've had probably about 8 good cucumbers, a bunch of basil and some cherry tomatoes. Something keeps eating our strawberries, but we've had one or two. The okra looks like its getting ready too. So things are exciting. In the next week I plan on planting leek, chard and collards seeds.

More pictures of the garden:

Oh and look at the cherry tomato plant in the back right on the picture above and compare it to the picture I posted back when we put it in. Man that thing has grown!

Peas

Well, here are our first shelling peas. I am so very excited, I just can't hide it. I could eat these day and night. We now have a second row growing up a new trellis. I really hope we are going to get a bunch out of these like we did the snap peas. This is what I have been waiting for with our garden. Its like my own Eureka.

Otherwise, most everything else is growing well. The cherry tomato is huge and we have about 2 dozen cherry tomatoes growing. The collards have grown in well and we are going to plant some more. I should post the recipe Jason used to make some vegetarian southern collards. We've got basil coming in and the cucumber bushes we planted look good. Finally, I put an okra seedling in last week (the first week in June) and it seems to be alright.

As far as seeds go, while our basil, peas and collards are doing well, I've had problems with the cilantro, bell pepper and eggplant. I think I might have an eggplant or two, but I can't tell for sure that it is not a weed. I may just transplant it and see. As for the other things, let's just keep our fingers crossed.

Basil!!!

I saw my first basil sprout on Monday. Yippee!

miscellaneous spring pictures

These pictures are from the beginning of April. First, you can see the strawberries and the artichoke in the background. Then, you can see the hills for the peas, collards and cucumber. Last, to the immediately left, you can see our tomato plant.

Spring planting

Well we began our spring planting.
On March 21, we put seeds in the ground for Collards, shelling peas, lemon cucumber and Big Dipper Pepper. For all of these, we used Burpee seeds. The peas and collards took almost immediately and I believe we saw sprouts within a week or so. As of today, the peas are about 3-4 inches high. Jason made a trellis and we put this in between the two rows. However, I am hoping that this weekend, we can put another row in and Jason is going to build one more trellis, about 1/2-2/3 the size of the one we are currently using.
The collards are also growing well. We should probably be looking at thinning them out soon.
The bell pepper and lemon cucumber have yet to do anything. However, the bell pepper package did say to start in a container and then transplant. But, I don't know why the cucmber aren't growing, and I really really want to grow some cucumber. I may try planting some more seeds or a starter in a couple of weeks if we don't see anything soon.
Finally, last weekend, April 10-11, I put some sweet basil and cilantro in from seed. The basil is ferry-morse start-smart and the cilantro is ferry-morse organic. I have yet to see sprouts on these. But the basil says it takes 5-10 days for germination and the cilantro takes 7-10, so we still have time before I need to worry.
We also planted a couple of starters on March 21. We put in a black cherry tomato plant, an artichoke plant and strawberries. It looks like all of these are doing very well.
PS- the bearded iris that Erika gave us is about ready to bloom. Yay!

winter vegetables

Alright, so I completely and totally slacked at following up on the winter vegetables. The brief recap being:

• Celery- grew healthy and happy. It didn't ever get large enough in the stalk to become snacking celery, so we didn't use as much as we should have. We used a bit in soups etc.
• Peas- they grew very abundantly and healthy. We got a small bag a week for over a month.
• Brocolli- it was fruitful. Slightly spciy. We enjoyed it for probably a couple of months.
• Brussel sprous- got attacked by a bug so we didn't eat it.
• onions and leeks- we planted the starters from the nursery, but did not thin them as I gues you are supposed to do. Note for next year, thin them out.
• Beets- they came in pretty good, but really got healthy a little late. While they tasted sweet, we thought they might have been in the ground a little long. They may have benefitted from going in a little earlier. This was the only thing we started from see.

I think that's about it. The brocolli, peas and beets were all very exciting. I'll keep better tabs next year of what we get in the ground, and maybe we'll aim for September.