Garden Update

I keep meaning to update about my garden, but forgetting (although I have been taking the photos)... so here it is after a couple of weeks ;)  I hope to have another guest garden post (or two) coming up too, so keep your eyes peeled!

First up- "salad fixin's" ... quite lovely.  You'll notice the broccoli is gone- cabbage white butterflies infested them- and flour did NOT dessicate them and kill them.  They even got into the florets so no broccoli again this year.  I have to change the way I do broccoli if I am to grow it again.

 You can see here my Jalapeno Peppers from last week.  They were big enough to pick this week, and they are now on my counter ready to use in a recipe for stuffed jalapeno peppers.

 See?  Beautiful aren't they?  I love the way peppers look :)

 I have given my tomatoes new and very lovely, colourful cages :)  The idea is to stop them falling over..

This week I have some good looking tomatoes...

Both kinds of tomatoes are doing well- they seem to like the pots!

The other peppers- the poblanos...

-Which are really growing well here as you can see-

And the bell peppers, are coming along.  This was the decapitated plant remember?  Look - it has blooms :)


I am hoping for peppers soon ;)


Then there is the glorious pomegranate... with the neighbour's tree being cut down, it gets a lot more morning sunlight, and all of a sudden there are bunches of buds all over it :)

They look kind of like this before bursting into flower like the one below.

A colour that is just not captured well on camera!  Still, they are quite lovely to see :)

Another lovely (and delicious) red fruit in the garden, would be my  raspberries...

The bushes are LOADED with them!  I need to pick them and use them... but for what?  Decisions... decisions...

Their neighbours the elderberries and blueberries are growing too... but something keeps eating my blueberries.  I suspect the little brown rabbit we have seen in the garden at least twice this weekend!

These blueberries are from LAST week- this week they are gone :(.
There are a few pawpaws too... Not as many as I would like, although I suspect there are more than I can see easily ;)

The corn is also growing like mad... I like to brag that mine is the best looking corn around here ;)

It is almost 4 foot tall, and looking good :)
And my beans... they are flowering!

These are the Lima beans :)

And here are the green beans :)

Beautiful visitors come to the garden too- this is a Zebra Swallowtail on my pleurisy root.

And a Tiger Swallowtail on the same ;)  The pleurisy root is immensely popular- it is a relative of milkweed, so you know the monarchs like it too.

Some visitors are not so pretty- DD holds her 'friend' which she calls "Toady".  Toady visits us a lot- so often in fact that he has no problems with being held ;)

So that's the garden this week... more later!

GrowCookEat

Over on the Goodlife (Eats) blog, Katie has started a weekly 'GrowCookEat' post- which every kitchen gardener, might just want to participate in :).

I started my garden a few weeks back- back when it was cold and I thought the weather would never warm up ;)  It has warmed since, and promises to stay pretty much that way, although they have changed our forecast since this morning :)
So I thought I would do a last minute post about my garden, and then try to keep up with weekly posts.  It is always interesting to see what is happening where anyway!


On to the garden!

FRUIT:  I have plenty of fruit in the garden growing, whether or not I get to eat it is another matter entirely!  Closest to the house, and housed in a pot, is my fig tree.

Right now it is little more than twig-stems and these tiny leaves.  I was thrilled, because last year I had a cold snap that just sent it back to the ground.  I can't say that I have had any decent fruit yet- this will be my third year, but I do indeed get figs :)  Tiny figs!  I am hoping for something better this year...

I have two blueberry bushes.  It is debatable whether I will get much out of them this year as I JUST bought one and the other has yet to flower much.  But I live in hope :)  You met the pawpaw (again) in my previous post, so next up are the raspberries...

Just getting ready to flower!  These were a delightful gift from my friend Molly- and now they are going wild!  I must have dozens of new canes shooting up just these past few weeks!  I love that (shame the ants like the raspberries too!).

As a companion, there are my (or the kids' rather) new strawberry plants...

They share a bed with my chives (also seen in a previous post) and the future herbs I hope to host in this same bed.  I am waiting for our herbs galore festival, but I already have a list!  The kids are quite excited to see these berries already!

Further over on the hill, the Trifoliate Orange is beginning to show its fruit.  I showed the flowers from just last week, the heat made them last just a few days!

And now on to the vegetables!  I showed the broccoli and potatoes earlier- nothing spectacular about the broccoli, but the potatoes are really doing well!  I hope I get lots of potatoes- I get very mixed luck with them!  (It is dependant on weather).

But there is almost a bed full of them and I am always hopeful!

Here is one of the onions... well shallots actually :)  These are pretty experimental for me... a new thing to my garden (at least in that I managed to plant them on time, I think I might have tried them once before...)  They are tiny, taking up a very small portion of the square foot they were in.

You can see how big it is :)  There are several shallots in each square, I think 4, so they should all be coming up soon!

Swiss chard seedlings.  I have 4 squares, each with 1 allocated plant.  This one of course is waiting to be thinned :)

Carrots.  Also waiting to be thinned ;)  I am waiting for the second set of leaves on my seedlings, by the way, before I thin much!

 Spinach.  Three squares with spinach.  I am hoping these do well, I love fresh spinach!  especially with strawberries!

 Lettuce- another three squares with lettuce.  In both cases there are about 4 plants to each square, and I have planted them in a spot which will eventually have shade as the weather warms and the pawpaw grows leaves :)  This is important to these cool weather crops which get bitter with heat and tend to bolt.  You can see this lettuce mix is one with a red tint- heirloom variety!

Beet seedlings.  They look almost identical to Swiss Chard seedlings (so I might have my pictures mixed up LOL) because chard is essentially beet leaves!  I thinned these after taking the photo!

In the next couple of weeks I will be getting ready to plant corn, beans and limas... and of course, my herbs :)
I also hope to pick up 2 tomato plants, indeterminate, one cherry and one large!  Keep watching!

A Peek at My Square Foot Garden

I suppose I should share some of what is going on in my garden- we have managed to get out there the last few weekends- despite the fact that we have had a year's worth of rain in the last few months!! The local weather man says that since November, we've had 60% of the yearly total, and should we have had it all as snow it would be 300 inches deep!
But I digress, back to the garden :)

About 2 weeks ago, I repurposed an old mailbox we had sitting under the back porch. We just replaced the mailbox post out front, and now we had the old one, kind of feeble, but still useful. We have been using the old box for years, so it seemed quite logical when my son suggested putting it outside of the garden, to do just as he suggested.

I painted the mailbox beautiful bright colours :) Because I think they are pretty and because I wanted it to obviously NOT be a mailbox in use for mail ;)

Inside are stored garden tools- the small ones- and the kids' gloves for gardening. Plant labels, twine... you know the kinds of things!

Here is the working garden. Through the arbour, down the path- you are in the middle of my square foot garden. Not all have grids yet- I need to work on those!

This one in the front has the new raised bed frame around it. Eventually they will all be like this. Those are peas in the front there, and the recently added soil is covering Swiss Chard :)
The back one has 4 squares shallots, 3 square lettuce, 3 squares spinach, 3 squares beets... and 3 spare squares.

The grid in this bed is actually a tomato tower. It is a great temporary grid! Those 4 squares are carrots. Behind it are potatoes and broccoli and the one in front will eventually house beans.

The yearly Easter garden sits in front of newly planted strawberries and transplanted garlic chives. I need to clean up our gravel some though...

So there it is, a sneak peek at what is happening in my central Virginia garden :) How is your garden growing?

seeds

seeds
Originally uploaded by Spinneretta

I was thrilled when the weather forecasters told us what the weather would be like this week. Sunday was about 60 degrees F (about 15 degrees C) which is warmer than it has been for AGES. An unusual cold winter for us- normally we see warm patches here and there, but not this year.
Today they say it will reach 74F (23C).
So it is not too surprising that I got out my seed packets and planted some seeds- in peat pellets inside :) Truth be told, most of these could probably go outside too, BUT my square foot beds are not quite ready- the snow covering them and the rain after just made this happen a lot later than normal!

The kids helped me plant the seeds- DD was especially excited because she is looking forward to eating them all ;)

New Fertiliser

With the tomatoes coming in and many issues with the garden (too much rain at once, not enough over all- weeds- you name it!), it seems just as well that we have a new fertiliser!



Meet Mocha, the newest member of the family- a 9 week old rabbit, that M'Lady and Rebel already love. Mocha was M'Lady's choice of name for the rabbit- she was trying to make up a word, but actually came up with a real one LOL. It suited his dark hair and we went with it. I had liked Hagrid and Sooty- but I never get to name the pets any more ;)



Isn't he sweet? Actually we don't know whether Mocha is a boy or a girl, but it doesn't matter. It is a sweet natured bunny- and ALL bunnies have droppings, which are the best fertiliser. I hope the rabbit bandit in the garden doesn't mess with him!

Some garden pictures

From the garden.

I gave up on the seed I was growing... between getting fried and just not thriving (I suspect my potting soil and the time in the sun under the plastic did this) I decided to fork out for some plants from my local Herb Festival this weekend :)

Swiss Chard and Lettuce in front, peas growing up the trellis in back :)

Cilantro... just for Dana ;)

The kids' garden, wherein they have planted garlic. I added seeds for pumpkins (one orange and one white), Marigolds and Chamomile.

Tomatoes and Peppers, plus sage in the background.

The perfect rose.