Spring Weather, It Can Happen

Last year we didn't really get a spring.  The spring crops, like lettuce, peas and fava beans, just didn't have a chance. This year spring has been really awesome, so far. It has been cool but not cold with lots of good sunshine and a bit of rain.

My adventures with this green house have been way too exciting. It is very light and acts like a sail.  You can probably imagine where this story is going.  Yes, it blew over, and yes, it had flats of sprouting seeds in it at the time.  It was a typical windy early spring day. My daughter came in the house from school and said, "mom, your green house blew over." I had been checking on it periodically, because I knew it was a possibility. It must have just happened.  This is what it looks like now. It's all reassembled and seeds are replanted.  I really staked it down tight and dug it down into the dirt a few inches. It has made it through a few wind storms now, so I am not too worried about it.

Here are the shelves full of seedlings.

Arugula

Sweet Onions

Jalapeno Peppers

Pak Choy or Boc Choi or whatever.  I had some fun with the spelling.

Gotta have my dark greens.

This is a whole flat of herbs with loads of lavender.

I know you can's see them, but this container has lots of tiny alpine strawberry sprouts.  I am so excited about them.  The plants are pretty, the flowers lovely and the strawberries delicious.

I found this packet of celery starts at Bimart.  It takes months to get celery from seed to this stage so I decided to speed up the harvest and buy it.

I also bought this little guy last week.  Its called a jellybean blueberry. It stays small and really bushy and makes really tasty berries.  The tag says you can even grow it in a pot. I want 12 of these to replace the boxwood bushes in the front yard, but I want to try it out this year first.

This large blueberry bush has already been planted.  It is going to look lovely here next to the front porch.

The flowers are already coming on, so I made sure to get it in the ground right away.

I finally got myself a quince.  It is very small, but its healthy and the flowers will be very pretty on the other side of the porch.

I bought some cabbage starts at SavMart because they were so cheap and looked really nice. I put them in the pots that the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants were in last year. I want to rotate crops families. Also, cabbages get so big that they take up too much room in the raised beds.  At least in the pots they can just hang over the edge and not crowd anything else.

The June bearing strawberries are putting for their leaves.

The spinach that I planted in the fall has been great this spring.  I haven't seen any leaf miner yet, and I have harvested twice, a big bowl full each time.

I haven't harvested any kale yet, but the fall planting is looking good.

The peas are coming up strong...

I love...

PEAS!

Radishes, I planted three different kinds: Easter Egg II mix, Cherry Belle, and French Breakfast.

I actually remembered to plant some beets this year.  I love beets.

Another variety of arugula.

My rhubarb

Strawberry bed

Fall planted bed

Onions and Lettuces. The back left corner has four collard green plants.

Broccoli and lettuces

You can't really see them but there are shallots, onions and peas galore here.

Radishes, beats, carrots and mixed salad greens with peas

Swiss chard, carrots and cover crop peas and oats

 

The mojito mint is showing signs of life in its pot.

This furry little guy is the oregano. This year I will plant the rosemary in a pot and try bringing it inside for the winter.  I have determined that it just will not overwinter here. When my chives, thyme and lavender sprout I will have a complete compliment of perennial herbs for all of my favorite cooking.

Middle of June Already? Where Did the Spring Go?

My rhubarb is very young, only having been planted this spring, and having had to overcome ants and earwigs feeding on it, but it is doing so well that I went ahead and harvested two very large stems.  It was exactly enough to make my favorite dessert: strawberry rhubarb squares.  We served it up at one of our latest barbecues with my aunt and uncle along with some creamed peas and new potatoes.  I will post both of those family recipes on the recipe page as soon as I finish this post.

The strawberries I used for the strawberry rhubarb squares were also from the garden.  The recipe calls for 2 cups of each: sliced rhubarb and sliced strawberries. I know I won't have enough strawberries for jam, but I had plenty for this recipe from one day of picking.

My pears are doing well.  The tree looks healthy, and the pears are getting bigger and bigger every week.

The peas are almost done. If you have been reading my blog all along, you know that I planted two different plantings of peas two weeks apart to stagger the harvests.  I also planted three different types of peas in hopes to have different harvest times and make the pea harvest last longer.  Yeah. So.... That didn't work out for me at all. The warm weather lately has forced all the peas to ripen together.  I think that the weather around here can be counted on to do this to me every year.  I don't know why I even try.  Oh well.  The peas have been delicious.  Only one of the pea varieties I planted has edible pods.  My daughter really likes those.  There have been enough of those for her, and enough of the other shelling peas for me to make four dinners for us and to give a whole 2 cups to my grandparents whose peas are just flowering now. My peas are pretty much done now, though.  I will pull them out later today and put in some more tomato plants that are getting very tired of being in pots.

There are still a few new pea pods, but the weather is supposed to be in the nineties again tomorrow, so the peas are done.

The peppers, however, are really thriving in the hot weather.  They are starting to flower.

The carrots are starting to look like carrot plants.  I love carrots.

Molly's gourds are flowering.  I have never grown gourds before, so when these beautiful flowers opening I was very pleasantly surprised.

Here is another flower on another type of gourd.

The Hansel eggplant is making flower buds even though it is still very small.  It is having a bit of a challenge with aphids.

The potatoes are dealing with aphids and leaf hoppers.  You can see a leaf hopper feeding on this flower.

There are so many lady bugs and lady bug larvae around.

The fava beans are so huge.  I have to do some reading about what to do with these when they are ripe. I want to try making falafel.

My first round of cilantro has become coriander.  By that, I mean that it has gone to seed.

It is a good thing I have been planting more.

Here are the hens.  They are getting to be really grown up hens instead of chicks.  I let them out into a round pen mad of chicken wire when I am outside.  They love it.  They eat bugs and weeds and talk all about it. They can also fly now.  They have flown out of the round pen a few times, but they don't go far and because I don't leave them out there by themselves, it is easy to round them back up.

The zuccini plant is just about to flower with it's first fruit.  I haven't seen any male flowers yet, so I am not sure this fruit will be pollinated.  I could pick it right now and eat it as is.  Mmm, embrionic squash.  My husband loves zucchini.  He can't wait till we start  getting to eat it.

Also, since my last post, the broccoli heads developed and were harvested and eaten.  They were very tasty.  The secondary buds on the sides have also been harvested and eaten, except this one, which it appears that I missed.  Don't worry.  I won't let it go to waste.

Look at these little guys.  The brussel sprouts are starting to form.  I think they will really thrive once I pull out the peas which are shading them and encroaching on their space quite a bit.

I notice this little gourd this time when I walked through.  It is so fuzzy and cute.  If it is pollinated it will grow to be a pretty large gourd.

Over all, the garden is turning into quite a jungle.  I have been out there several times with the pruners to trim things back and keep them under control.  I have trimmed the onions, garlic and the tomatoes.  I have thinned out the kale and carrots.  I have been training the pumpkins and cucumbers to have a single vine in one direction, and I have been trying to keep the gourds under some semblance of control. There is also a bit of weeding to do, especially between the raised beds. I guess I better get to work.