Quick update...

....more to follow!

We've been swamped around here -- in some cases, LITERALLY!  I think we've had 5-6 inches of rain in the last week, so the road in front of our house is often a river, the grass needs to be mown, but it's too wet, and......you get the picture.

And....my husband's company's latest game arrived, so we unloaded 4.5 tons off a semi, and processed about 1500 packages in a matter of days. Whew.

So.... I'll take pictures today and tomorrow, and post them -- everything is growing!

I have harvested lettuce, and pulled of the ones that were bolting.  More on the way, and I need to plant some more.

Harvested beets and made barszcz (Polish beetroot soup) for my oldest, who lived in Poland for a school year as a Rotary Youth Exchange student.  Picked several zucchini already -- LOVE fried zucchini slices.  The yellow zucchini are not doing as well, tending to rot.  I'll have to take a look and see if I can figure out why.

the first zucchini!

And....here's the road in front of our house, doing it's best imitation of a river.

Fresh Strawberries, and a Squash Coveter

It's been a couple of glorious weeks weather-wise -- rain, then warmth.  I've been doing a lot of weeding and working in other parts of the yard, but the kitchen garden is doing incredibly well!

My mom and Aunt Mary stopped by today on their way from Aunt Mary's home near Columbus, OH, to my parents' place in Southern IL.  They picked and ate strawberries right off the plant, and took some fresh picked radishes with them.  Mom was eyeing the squash, and suggested I plan a trip down to their place that just happened to coincide with when the squash would be ready to harvest.  :-)

The strawberries look great, too:

The tomatoes will be blooming soon.  I broke down, and bought another tomato plant:  German Queen.  It's another heirloom.  Of course, a matter of days after I bought it, I noticed that one of the Polish Linguisa (paste) tomatoes had sprouted.  So.....I'll have Hungarian Hearts in honor of Brigitte's year as a Rotary Youth Exchange student, Polish Linguisa in honor of my son Erick's year in Poland (2011-2012), German Queen for my husband's German heritage.  Now I just have to find something Czech to plant for MY heritage (half Bohemian/Czech and basically half German).  HMMM.....

 Here's the German Queen!

 Hungarian Hearts are looking great.  Once they get to be about 3 feet tall, I'll take off some of the lower branches to reduce the risk of infection, etc., from the soil.

I'm also going to start adding crushed egg shells to the soil -- apparently that is good for slow calicium release which can reduce the chances of blossum end rot









Let's see.....what else is there to show you?  Lots of carrots, and it's about time to harvest the Tennis Ball buttercrunch lettuce -- it's starting to bolt.

While cleaning out the garage, I found this wooden composter I had forgotten I even had!  So I set it up.  It's already almost full of weeds, etc., that I've pulled -- it was overflowing 2 days ago, and the level is already down one entire board.  Amazing how quickly that happens!

The pole beans are starting to twine up the bean tower.  A couple of the cucumbers are starting to inch out onto their frame, and the watermelon is sending out tendrils which I'm guiding onto the flat grid I set up for them.

I have more baby radish seedlings, and now some turnip seedlings.  The Giant Caesar lettuce is coming along nicely, and the basil FINALLY decided to sprout.  The zinnias are budding, and I have marigolds, volunteer and intentionally planted, blooming all over the place.

Have a glorious weekend!  Next up for me is weedwacking the ditch!

What a FEAST!

Feast your eyes on this glorious salad, all from my garden.  My department had its annual summer "deck meeting".  This year it was too chilly to meet outdoors on someone's deck, so we met indoors.  We still ate well, as usual, and I brought a large fresh salad picked this morning from my garden.

So....what went into this feast?

From left to right:  Red Romaine (not very red because it got shaded by the out-of-control kale.) and Tennis Ball buttercrunch.

Winter Marvel loose leaf lettuce.  Kale in the lower right corner, And in the bottom middle, some early radishes for color.

Fresh-from-the-garden salad

There is NOTHING like a salad of fresh greens.  I've been enjoying them for a week now.

So today was a gorgeous day to work and we have a weekend of impending thunderstorms, so I worked outside for more than 5 hours today.  The garden looks great.  I finally decided the mystery plant is a weed -- if one's definition of weed is "anything which is growing in the wrong place." -- so I pulled it.

Pole Beans

The Giant Caesar lettuce I planted didn't sprout -- perhaps old seed -- so I replanted one square and planted an additional square of it -- I love the taste and texture of it.  The pole beans have sprouted, but I lost two of the cherry tomato plants.  I may just plant 2 more beans on that tower instead.

The surviving cherry tomatoes look great!

Speaking of tomatoes, I have my tomato tower and bed set up.  I need to add a layer of composted cow manure on top of the grass clippings, and I make a well of soil for each plant.  Since I took this picture, I have planted 3 "Hungarian Heart" heirloom tomato plants from Cook's Garden.  I will plant three "Pink Brandywine" plants, and I'm not sure what I'll put on the two remaining poles.




I also planted one blackberry and one raspberry plant.  And the strawberries are looking really good:





I planted a watermelon "Sugar Baby" plant.  It's a small, seedless watermelon.  I'm experimenting with something different with it.  I put up a something for the plant to grow on to and to support the melon.  I used the wire grids from an old compost bin, and lashed it onto a bamboo pole support.  In the background are a number of different types of iris, including Louisiana Bog Iris and flags, in my rain detention bed.

I also got the rest of the lawn mowed today, and  used the grass clippings to mulch around a lot of stuff.  I planted an azalea to replace a butterfly bush that didn't survive.  In fact none of my butterfly bushes made it through the winter -- I have two dwarf bushes I need to replace.

And....just because.....more pictures of the garden:

More pictures of the garden

First of all, here's my mystery plant.  I have no idea what this is.  I don't know if this is weed, or a volunteer of something worth keeping.  If anyone out there in the blogosphere knows what this is, please let me know!

AAANNNNNDDDD..... Here's the garden.  On the left are cauliflower plants and baby beet plants.  Next is kale and red romaine, interspersed with onions.  The second picture has broccoli in front and tennisball lettuce and baby carrot plants. The third picture has my Winter Marvel butter crunch and the mystery plant/weed.  The open space to the right of the Winter Marvel will be Giant Caesar lettuce -- one of my favorites.  The fouth and final picture shows my bean/tomato tower which will have pole beans on two sides and cherry tomatoes on the other two.  Behind the tower are 2 squash plants (two stils protect by cut out milk jugs), and there are baby radishes around the milk jug furthest away from you in the pictures.

Those are grass clippings around the broccoli and in the base of the tower.  Great mulch/weed barrier.

A close-up of the rasdish seedlings around the squash plant.  They'll be harvested well before the squash takes over the space.

I've been a bit frustrated with the bell peppers I've started from seed.  All germinated, but keeping the seedlings alive long enough to grow a few more pairs of leaves has not been easy for some reason.  I don't remember having this trouble in the past, but.....   Here's one of the Purple Belle pepper plants that is doing well.

Here's my new project -- a new bed for tomatoes!  18 cinder blocks loaded on to a cart, then into the car, then out of the car and around the back of the house.  I broke down one of the compost piles and partially filled the bed.  I need to get some composted cow manure, and then I'm building my tomato frame out of bamboo poles a la Kevin Lee Jacob's technique.

I'm not a big tomato fan -- there's a mild allergy which runs in the family, and I suspect that's part of it.  But my husband and my youngest like tomatoes.  I'm going to plant Pink Brandywine heirlooms, and Hungarian Heart.  I already have the cherry tomatoes on the tower, so I haven't decided what other varieties I'm going to plant  I'll have room for 8 plants.

I'm also going to put in a smaller bed for one raspberry and one blackberry plant.  I'll let you know how that goes!

Kale, Glorious Kale!

I am in the throws of Finals Week, annd have spent the last couple weeks grading, grading, grading.  I have also worked in the garden, but haven't really had the time or energy to write my post here.  But there is so much happening that I'll probably have several posts over the next week to make up.  :-)

April 26th -- look at all those cute little plants!










May 4th:  Look at that kale, and the cute little Tennis Ball lettuce next to it!  It's grown so much in the last week!

Here's a closer look at the Tennis Ball buttercrunch lettuce.

The Winter Marvel buttercrunch seedlings are also doing great, and I actually harvested  some of it today for my colleague Megan who has been missing fresh veggies.

I'm going to harvest more tomorrow because we're supposed to have serious thunderstorms this weekend, and I don't want to lose anything.












Plans for tomorrow and Friday include:

• put up the rabbit fence  -- although I suspect I have to worry more about our two dogs, who like to partake of the veggie buffet.
• finish the new bed for the tomatoes.  Assemble the poles/trellis/thingy for them.
• build the new smaller bed for the raspberry and blackberry plants.
• get the new beds topped off with compost/soil/etc.
• plant the pole beans.
• plant more lettuce.

Next week, I need to work on the daylily beds -- I have over 300 square feet of daylilies.  :-)  I'm going to use Kevin Lee Jacob's newspaper technique, substituting cardboard as I have a plentiful supply of that.  That means I'll be buying mulch, too.

Green, Green, Everywhere is Green!

It's always amazing this time of year.  Days of warmth and sunshine, and timely doses of rain, and everything seems to be growing almost in front of one's eyes.  Unfortunately that also includes the   grass, but....that's a small price to pay for all the flowers and veggies which are popping up, growing by leaps and bounds.

Garden Update:

The lemon cucumber seeds I planted to replace the plants I killed are starting to pop up.  I have Brown Russians started indoors, and I'll transfer them outside this week.

Purple Belle and Grand bell peppers

I planted the bell peppers with a little protection.  I'll get the habeneros and jalapenos planted later this week.  I'm also going to plant some radishes in and around the pepper plants. They have a fast timeline to harvest, so they'll be ready to pick before the pepper plants get too big.

Tomato Plants

I planted a couple cherry tomato plants, and started some Pink Brandywine heirloom tomatoes.  I think I'm going to build a separate support for the Brandywines, probably something like this.  The question is, where do I set it up?  I think for this year I'll use the smaller 4'X4' bed.    But in the long run, and based on what I learn this year, I think I'll be resetting my entire garden set up.  To that end, I was reading Kevin's amazing blog this morning, especially his post about his garden set-up.  I don't know if I need something that extensive, but....I'm already starting to feel I want more space, especially for more lettuce!

Kale, lettuce, onions

Cauliflower and beet sprouts

The kale and lettuce are coming along nicely, and the onions, beets, and carrots have sprouted.    I need to think out the beets in another week or so -- the baby beet leaves will make a nice addition to salads.















My winter buttercrunch is coming along nicely, too!  Not too long before I can start harvesting some of the leaves.



I think I have some volunteer marigolds coming up.  I need to let them grow some more so I can be sure that's what they are, and then I'll move them to where I want them. I also need to get the nasturtiums and zinnias going.
















Here are my summer squash.  New leaves are coming, and they seem to be happy in their plastic tubes.

How much longer till I can pick lettuce?

Winter Buttercrunch Lettuce

Lettuce is coming along just fine.  I'm hoping in just a couple more weeks I can start picking some!


Everything else is coming along reasonably well.  This kale, and if you look closely, you can see that the onions have sprouted.

This is Red Romain and onions. 

More kale.

I planted the squash today.  I put some open-topped plastic jugs around them for some wind protection until they complete harden off.

I also brought out the tomato seedlings to harden off.  I want to get them planted next week.

And here are the winter sowing jugs.  Some sprouted, and some didn't.  I'm keeping track of which ones didn't sprout, and I'll adjust accordingly next year.

The poor cucumbers did indeed not survive, so I replanted seeds.  I had lemon cucumber seeds on hand.  I ordered some more Brown Russian cucumber seeds from Cook's Garden, and I'll get those planted this week.

I also ordered TunLCovers.   I'm very disappointed with the hoops and fabric arrangement I was trying to use.  Everything just pulls out of the soil, in part because the soil in my raised beds is so friable. I even tried Earth Staples, but.....nothing held them in.  We'll see if the TunLCovers work any better.