Peas in Bloom

A quick count found 71 flowers on the Sugar Snap Sprint along with maybe half a dozen pea pods in various states of growth. In comparison, the Sugar Snap have four flowers at this point. The Sugar Snap are much taller than the Sprint though. I wonder if they'll produce more peas in total.

The Three Sisters garden is ready. We've got a grid of 3 x 5 mounds and we planted the corn today in each of the circled mounds.

A larger scale view of the garden, with the pavers and raised beds. Flourishing potatoes hogging the camera.

Also got a first taste of Sugar Snap Sprint peas. Pretty tasty, even the boys liked it.

A Little Behind

Progress in setting up the garden has slowed a bit, to the point where we're a little behind. Not too bad, but a week maybe. Most of our plants should be out by now, but we haven't planted parsnips, corn, and zucchini yet. Hadn't started any of those indoors until I just set some zucchini in pots today. Here are some pictures of the progress.

Black raspberries (aka Black Caps)

Super Beefsteak Tomato

Chive flowers, very peppery, good on salad

Concord grapes. Yeah, that's right, grapes.

Future site of the three sisters garden - corn, beans, squash living in harmony.

Gone and Back Again

Left for the weekend, come back to the poor tomatoes bone dry and parched. Worse still, the temp is slated to get down to the upper 30s tonight, hope there's no frost. Put some buckets over them to keep them snug, hope it works. A few of them still exposed, only had so many buckets.

Super Beefsteak

The barley is thriving.

Onions starting to poke up.

The Sugar Snap Sprint peas have flowers, although they're shorter than the normal Sugar Snap peas.

Potatoes looking good as well.

We scored some blue potatoes from a natural foods store on the way to visit the in-laws. These are going in the ground shortly.
The boy brought home some pumpkins he sprouted in school, they're doing great.

And cucumbers are peeking up as well.

Planted More Tomatoes

Ten more tomatoes in the ground, huzzah! Here's the garden layout up to this point.

A quick guide to our ten varieties of tomatoes:

• 100 - Super Sweet 100 (cherry)
• 4th of July Hybrid
• BB - Big Boy Hybrid
• CP - Cherokee Purple
• EG - Early Girl
• ML - Mortgage Lifter
• RC - Red Cherry, Large Fruited
• SB - Super Beefsteak Hybrid
• SC - Summer Choice
• SS - Steak Sandwich Hybrid

Looking Good

The barley is super charged.

Tomatoes or outside, exposed to the elements, and doing well so far. This one's Early Girl.

Strawberries are doing ok, though badly in need of weeding.

The lettuce is growing. Still a bit small.

Potatoes putting on some nice dark green foliage.

Carrots poking up through landscaping fabric.

And finally, a shot of the path.

Barleyzilla

Apparently the conditions are ideal for barley. It has doubled in size since yesterday.

Tomatoes in the Ground

Tomatoes? In the ground? Before the last frost date? Madness, surely! Nonetheless, did plant 10 tomato seedlings that have been growing in the basement. My calculation in the matter was that if they all died, we still have 5x more seedlings than we need. Planted 4 of them in wall-of-water plastic bags. This is supposed to protect them down to 16 F, and the worst low in the forecast is only upper 30s. If they don't freeze, we've definitely got a good jump on the season.

The types planted so far - Steak Sandwich Hybrid, Early Girl, Cherokee Purple, Mortgage Lifter, Big Boy. About 10 plants, that covers half the bed. As recommended, crushed some eggshells in the bottom of the holes - supposedly helps fend off blossom end rot.

The remaining seedlings in the basement. It's a lot!

Mostly tomatoes, some peppers, and two pumpkins planted by Dunc.

Also some big news - the barley is up. And about an inch tall already.

I can almost taste the homemade beer.

Found Potatoes

Thursday scored two nice finds. First was the old compost heap from previous residents that was back in the woods a bit. Thanks to a hot tip from the neighbor who knew the people who made it. It was black gold, I tell ya! About a foot deep and maybe 10' across. Already made a dent in it, putting two wheelbarrow loads of compost into the garden from it.

The other find was a number of sprouted potatoes in the compost container we keep near the back door. We salvaged 4 of them, each about a foot high. One of them even had a teensy cute little potato on it already, hehe.

Two ratty looking ones - they've greened up significantly in just two days.

The pretty one. Flagship of the potato fleet.

Baby potato!

Today is patio walkway building day. Gonna put in our salvaged brick paver walkway around the raised beds. Or some of it at least. Big project, HOT day. I don't want to get all melty.