Early Harvest

If we'd stayed another month, we would have had a full harvest... Oh well. At least I know I can grow a garden!

Look at those tomatoes! Only half of them ripened by the time we had to harvest... anyone know how to make fried green ones? lol

 

Little baby cabbage - not even enough to make saurkraut! 

  

Yummy broccoli!

  

And cherry tomatoes! 

  

And pole beans...

  

And cucumbers...

The pumpkins were growing, but didn't get time enough to get big...

 

Neat to see what a pumpkin starts out as, though, isn't it?

 

Oh, well... there's always next year!

How Does My Garden Grow?

It's definitely growing! You can even see it from a distance!



Michael just built a new box for my melon plants - it's brand new, I haven't even had time to put the squares in yet!



He got all the posts in for our vertical growers (some of which are getting big - those melons really need something to climb up soon!) and you can see the metal roll of fencing in the foreground he's going to attach to the posts. He also bought enough wood to build another box, so that's in the works as well.

Most of my plants are growing quite well.



Nice and neat in their little squares!



Those are pole beans in the back.



The cabbage is getting BIG! But I think it has a little mildew, and something is eating it! GRR. And there's one sad little broccoli plant there on the left...I'm not sure what happened to him...



But my spinach is gorgeous!



My cucumbers are coming up, and I've just planted a bunch more spinach and lettuce in front of it for a later harvest.



The pepper plants are starting to plump up nicely:



And I'm even growing celery! (although everyone says they're not going to eat it! lol)


Look at these gorgeous beets!



And these radishes will be the very first thing we harvest - look, you can already see them!



Gardening has proved to be quite an exciting endeavor!

I can't wait to eat it all - tomatoes, eggplant, cantaloupe, brussels sprouts... MMM!

Gridlock

We've got grids on the garden beds! I can see why creating the square foot grids are really going to help with planting. I'm glad we went through the work to do them.



It was a perfect day for it, not windy, about seventy degrees, and Dmitri and Zoe helped a lot!

We drilled holes, screwed in eyelets, and then threaded twine through the holes and tied it off. The eyelets were Michael's idea - so no one would scrape themselves on nails or screws. And they worked out brilliantly! He also gave me the idea to thread the twine through instead of tying each individual piece of twine off. I love being married to such a smart man. ;)



Turned out pretty good!

I can handle this sort of gridlock!

Tomorrow, we plant... weather permitting.

Eager to Transplant

My poor blog is as neglected as my little seedlings are lavished with love and attention! :)

We still don't have our boxes built for square foot gardening (I know, we're so behind!) and no chicken coop yet, either. We're waiting for our tax return, and it's been over a month, but still - nada. I hear it's taking longer this year, because of the rebates...

But I feel like the guy in the commercial, "It's my money and I WANT IT NOW!"

In the meantime, I'm doing what I can for my babies inside under the lights.

Tomatoes:



















Sunflowers:



















Peppers:



















Onions:



















Celery:



















Cabbage:



















Lettuce:



















Brussels Sprouts:



















Herbs:



















Nasturtiums (flowers):



















Mint:


















They're like little monsters, outgrowing their homes! (well except the mint, which just sprouted - but I hear mint gets very aggressive and invasive once it starts growing!)

Hurry, Mr. Taxman, I need a garden to plant these in before they take over the house!

I had a wonderful gift from a friend, who gave me lots of perennials to plant, so I've been doing that for the past two days. I'll get pictures soon... probably. Funny how little time I want to spend at the computer when it's so gorgeous outside! :)

Garden Behind

Apparently, I'm behind in my gardening. In February.

FEBRUARY!?

Huh!?

I guess I'm supposed to be planting seeds right now inside the house, so I can transplant them later. Get a jump on the growing season and all. I'm in Zone 5B - which, according to this calendar (different state, same zone) means I'm behind.

I just ordered my seeds today. Hurry, little seeds, hurry! Now I have to go out and buy stuff to plant them in... sheesh. This whole gardening thing is... like... work! ;)

Reminds me of that Gone With the Wind line, "You're not sorry you stole, you're just sorry you got caught!" I want the garden... but do I have to do all the work!? *whine*

Where's the Little Red Hen when you need her?

Speaking of chickens... Michael is already gathering tools to build our coop. Guess I'll have to start looking into chickens soon, too. Maybe we're behind on that, too, who knows!

Such a big learning curve... eek!

Here's what will, theoretically, be growing in our garden this spring...

Broccoli Raab Seed

Oliver Brussels Sprout Seed

Snowball Y Cauliflower Seed

Marketmore Cucumber Seed

Jericho Romaine Lettuce Seed

Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach

Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage Seed

Celebrity Tomato Seed

Danvers Carrot Seed

Conquistador Celery Seed

Walla Walla Onion Seed

Ariane Pepper Seed

Camarosa Strawberry Crowns

Hearts of Gold Melon Seedling

Cross your fingers!