5.30.2009

Spring is Amazing

Lots of garden pictures to share today. Things have been growing like crazy these last few weeks! We are now gardening a total of four plots spread throughout the city: Crazy, I know, but also really fun. Each has taken on a personality of its own......



First, the exciting news: Dave and I have found a new house to move into in August! We're being kicked out of the house we're currently renting, and we were afraid we wouldn't find anything we liked as much. It took a a while, but we managed to find a house that was even better than we imagined!

This is the garden in the backyard of the new house. It gets great sun, and the current tenant didn't want to plant it this spring, so we've been given carte blanche to garden it before we even move in. How wonderful it will be to move into a house that has vegetables ready and waiting for us! Dave and I went over and planted on Friday. The scallions you can see in the far corner looked like regrowth from last year - we harvested some and left them for future picking. We worked a bunch of compost into the soil and went to town!

These are tomato plants that I bought at a local garden center. I would have started them from seed myself, but by the time I found out that I would have this garden to work with, it was too late. I got a variety of heirloom tomato plants: across the back is Mortgage Lifter, Wisconsin 55, Yellow Oxheart, and Amish Paste. The front row is four Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes. Around each bed I planted an L shaped row of sweet basil. Yes, I know it's all probably too close together, but I tried to plant it in blocks so at least we can get to the plants and harvest. It's so hard to imagine that these tiny little seedlings will grow to crowd each other out, but I have no doubt it will happen.

These beds are planted in carrots, turnips, beets, and in the far corner (you can barely see them) are four globe eggplants. I've never attempted eggplant, but it's one of my favorite veggies and the seedlings were cheap, so I decided to go for it.

This is the coolest thing about the new house - a chicken coop! A really nice one too. I have big plans for this - look for many chicken posts to come!

These are the current tenants - two Rhode Island Red hens, plus a Gold Lace Wyandote that didn't make it into the picture.



Now to the Main Street garden plot. This picture was taken last week when I planted the squash and melon starts that had been in the basement under lights all spring. Dave also put in some hot pepper plants (on the left hand side).

The weekend before that, I had seeded three rows of sweet corn - it was just barely coming up.....

The squash seedlings were pretty yellow - definitely ready to get in the ground!

These Charantais Melon plants looked pretty sad, but I still have high hopes for them.

Here is the plot today, a week after the previous pictures. You can see wet spots where I put in some dry bean seeds, to complete the three sisters planting of corn, squash, and beans.

The corn is growing noticeably every day. Pollination can be an issue for corn, especially small plantings like this one, but I'm hoping it'll be OK. If I need to, I can come in and hand pollinate them.....the squash and melons haven't grown much, but they are definitely established and are starting to put off new baby vines. I've been warned extensively about squash vine borer, so I'll have to be on the look out for their eggs.

I'm pretty excited about this planting. The beans should grow up the corn, and the squash will spread out underneath and provide a deterrent for raccoons and other small mammals that like to munch sweet corn. I hope it works. If not, it's still a fun experiment!

I planted these basil seedlings at the same time I seeded the corn. They're not really growing at all, but they're not dead, and I have a feeling they'll go crazy as soon as we get some real hot weather.

The dill, on the other hand, is growing like gang busters! Compare it to this picture from Mother's Day - wow! I'll have to come harvest some soon for some dilled potato salad....



Garden #3 - the plot at Quann Gardens. All of the potatoes are up and looking good. In between the two potato mounds, I put in a row of Canario beans. I used the beans I'd brought with me from California - I'm pretty sure they're bush beans and won't need a trellis. I planted them last weekend, but they haven't broken ground yet. I couldn't resist digging one up today to see what was going on, and indeed they have sprouted. It won't be long......the soil here is really heavy - not the best for beans, but I'm willing to take the chance. The asparagus in the far left corner is pretty much done - we let the remaining spears grow into big ferny shoots.

The lettuce I planted on mother's day is growing really nicely. It won't be long until we're picking it!



Last but not least, our home garden. Now that the trees have leafed out, this little plot doesn't get a whole lot of sun, but it's still producing some nice salad greens.

This is the second growth of pea shoots. I cut them for salad on Mother's day and let them regrow. They were a bit tough, but I've still been using them to add flavor and texture to my salads.

The following four pictures were all taken last weekend:

Red Russian Kale planted in March.

Chard, also planted in March. It's well established, but growing slowly.

Spinach. Over the course of the next few days, most of it started to go to seed, so we did a big harvest.

The seeds I planted in early May were just starting to come up...you can just barely see them in this picture.
This picture is from today - these are all greens from the March plantings (you can see the skeleton of the cold frame they were in). There's some noticeable growth, even from last week. It's time to eat this stuff!

And here are the seeds I planted earlier this month, also growing fast. I'm a little surprised that they all seems to be doing so well, even with the shade....there's arugula, spinach, kale, chard, and lettuce in these rows.

The sugar snap peas in this garden are leggy, but are starting to flower despite the shade. I don't expect to get a ton of peas from these plants, but it looks like we'll have at least a few.

These are the herbs that I started from seed way back in the beginning of March. Boy, are they growing slowly! I re-potted them this weekend into these 2 gallon pots. Hopefully that'll help give them a jump start. I can see now why most people buy culinary herbs as plants, not seeds - they have taken forever! They're healthy though, and looking good!
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