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.