Looking Good So Far

Been a while since the last update. The peas have come and gone. Seemed like we had fewer than last year. I'm pretty sure we planted fewer, so maybe that's not unexpected.

Dying peas, removed shortly after

This is from June 12, already dying. We did get a few meals of peas out of them at least. And the Mrs. whipped up a killer peas soup.

The black raspberries came and stayed for a few weeks and then the birds took care of the leftovers. Did manage to graze a ton of them and gather enough for a pie one day. That was a nice pie.

Homemade black raspberry pie

We've picked about half of the garlic that we sowed last fall. Used a bunch already, very tasty. Although the outer skin is a lot thicker than I remember it being, and the cloves smaller for the most part. I suppose it's the varieties or maybe the weather. I think I'll try a hardneck variety again next year if I can find one. This year was just two random varieties - storebought #1, and storebought #2 (a reddish variety). Here's half the harvest laid out to dry. There's a cleaned up bulb in there for comparison.

About half the garlic harvest

Eggplant is doing better than I last time we grew it. I think last time we got one eggplant per plant, later in the summer. This time I counted about 15 flowers on one plant already.

June 12

Only growing 1 eggplant in a container (it's doing remarkably well...). It's grow a LOT in a few weeks.

June 29

Cukes have put on some good growth as well. Right now we have tiny little proto-cucumbers on them, about the size of a paper clip.

June 12

June 29

I'm hoping in a couple weeks we'll be making a small batch of refrigerator pickles with our own cucumbers, dill, and garlic.

Peppers were a bit of a disappointment this year. Tried starting around 8 different types from seeds taken out of storebought peppers, only bell, jalapeno, and serrano managed to survive. Only in about the last week have they don't much, and only a few of them. Today I bought a couple Anaheims - we were really hoping to have some of them, we enjoyed them when we lived in southern New Mexico. But none of our seeds sprouted. So I cheated and bought some plants. *hang my head in shame*

I've been in a bit of a love affair with pesto of late. So I've gone big time with the basil. The Mrs. planted a purple variety which is coming along nicely. I've planted some normal sweet basil anywhere I can find space.

And finally, tomatoes. They're coming right along. The ones I started on time in March are looking great. Tigerella have some beautiful clusters of fruit about ping pong ball sized. Sungold is just covered with flowers and little green tomatoes. I think both of those will be perennial favorites unless the taste is sub par. Everything else is coming along, with some flowers.

June 12

June 29

Planted a number of leftovers in 5 gallon pails.

June 12

June 29

Sungold flowers. Lookit all of em, wowzers.

Now that's a cluster of flowers

Corn is a few feet tall and zucchini is starting to produce.

And finally, a weird mystery veg. I think this is where we dumped the pumpkin after Halloween last year. The bush is HUGE.

The mystery beast

Mystery fruit, about 4 inches long

Oh, and our hops plant is taking over a whole side of the garden fence.

And the crabapples in the parking lot at work are starting to turn red. Soon, apple butter time.

Planting mostly done

We've already gotten some produce from the garden. I've enjoyed some chive flowers and the first strawberry just ripened.

First Strawberry!

The first set of garlic we planted should be ready in early June, hopefully the other two sets should be ready shortly thereafter.

Should be ready in a couple weeks.

We planted these two plots later.

We got some onions from a fellow gardener that raised them from seed. They're looking nice.

Onions

Eggplant just went in this weekend. We're going to prepare a bed out behind the fenced in garden but that bed is not ready yet.

Pingtung Long Eggplant

Sugar Snap Peas are looking good. And in front of the peas is half a row of lettuce and the other half spinach.

Peas, lettuce and spinach.

Pea flower

Tomatoes are in, some have a good start, others are just barely sprouted.

Tigerella Tomato

I caged all the tomatoes this year. Last year I didn't because I was concerned that the cages weren't large enough. But the tomatoes went all over the place. I think the cages will help this.

The hops that barely limped through last year has put up a mighty vine this year. The top of the post is 8' above ground level. Also note the tenant in the whimsical bovine birdhouse in the photo.

Mighty Hops!

The flagship jalapeno looks unimpressive right now.

Finally we visited a local place that sells gooseberries - Yellow Springs Farm - and got some gooseberries and elderberries.

Doesn't count as growing our own gooseberries if they came this way from the farm

Happy Elderberry plant.

And end it out with the current state of the black raspberries.

*yawn* -stretch-

Hibernation is complete, time to get things going in the garden again. As we raked up the pea patch a bit we were rewarded with this beauty! A carrot which survived the winter. So we unexpectedly had our first produce from the garden in early March, yuk, yuk. It was tasty, very carroty.

So anyway, peas. Planted a few 8' rows of sugar snap peas. Some were extremely wrinkly peas saved from last years end of the season. Don't know if they'll flourish or not. On top of that some year old peas from last year's leftovers. Peas did very well last year, I'm hoping they do again this year. Instead of painstakingly planting each individual pea, I scattered them in a furrow. I predict great success again this year.

We ran out of peas before we ran out of garden bed, so we decided to put down a little spinach and some Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce. It may be too early for them, but it's little loss if they die off.

The Seeds are Here!

Our seeds came in, I'm a little excited. Sure, it'll be a month or two before we even start any seedlings, but still.

Planning time

Sure, it's a wee bit chilly still, and half my winter tasks are unfinished. Who am I kidding, they're unstarted. But now is the time when an old man's fancy turns to thoughts of... see catalogs. Really, I don't think we'd be too badly off if we started the peppers under lights in the basement right about now.

And it's never too soon to go over the problems we had last year and see if we can work around them. Look out squirrels...

Cold

It's cold out. Snow.

I planted a load more garlic very late in the season, I'm not sure if it'll even come up. So far nothing. I mulched all the garlic beds with leaves ground up in the lawn mower. Hopefully that organic blankey will keep them warm until the spring. I put the leaf mulch on late too, they weren't looking too happy.

Preliminary planning for next season is underway. Current plans:

• Peas - sugar snap. Maybe plant them a bit earlier this time, maybe pull them a bit sooner.
• Zucchini - Maye get a mildew resistant variety. Definitely do more to fend off squash borers. Maybe mesh row covers.
• Tomatoes - Need to set up a chicken wire cage for them. Need zero access for squirrels, easy access for us. Thinking different colored cherry tomatoes featuring prominently.
• Peppers - We have maybe ten varieties already. Going to go big with buckets this time, they did well in containers even when overcrowded last year.
• Corn - Need a cage to keep out evil squirrels.
• Pumpkins - A few varieties.
• Beans - They did great last year, we have a lot of saved seeds.
• Cucumbers - Loads of pickles this year hopefully. Maybe relish!
• Winter Squash - A few varieites. Butternut did pretty well.
• Out this time: Carrots (did poorly), parsnips (did poorly), onions (also poorly), barley (too lazy to harvest and store it properly), cabbage (did poorly), pole beans (were nowhere near as good as bush beans, and didn't do as well). Well, not all of them are out, but probably won't do near as much of any of them.

Garlic Planting Time

Planted 90 garlic bulbs today. Have a vague notion of going into NYC and hitting the Union Square Green Market to see if I can get some cool varieites.