Transplanting seedlings

Today was a very good day to transplant my seedlings - tomatoes and peppers first. Originally I planted two 36-seed trays of tomatoes and about 24 peppers. As usual tomatoes turned into a "forest" and have been hardening off outside during the day, but only 50 will be planted in the main garden. Since we're supposed to have rain for next two days and temps in 70s today was perfect for transplant. Let's hope they like sunshine and rain.

 As you can see I already moved some to a large pots - these will be moved yet again over the weekend into 14" pots for the patio garden. I really hope that no more groundhog damage this year. Though raccoons visit is definitely a problem already.  Anyway, here are my slow-growing peppers. I have a bed in the large garden amended with composted sheep manure so hopefully it will help growing.

 The sweet onions that I planted from seeds are only now ready to be planted outside - they're actually going to go for the Community garden - I've run out of space in my own garden so will have to give them up.

 Another two novelties for me - fennel and artichokes. I've never grown either one so will be interesting to watch these. They'll be transplanted over the weekend to the unprotected bed and I hope deer won't eat them.

And lastly these two containers with tomatoes will be going for my coworker's garden so hope they'll keep growing and produce for her well!

How does your garden grow these days?

First May weekend in the garden

It's been another busy weekend in the garden, really wish I had more time to play outside during the week to catch up on all the weeding - so far weeds grow much faster than anything else. So far greens are very slow in growing, and peas are really having hard time growing  - they're only about 4" tall so not sure if we'll have many peas for snacking and definitely won't be as good as last year.

 

But at the same time I picked few more asparagus shoots, couple of young onions for crabcakes, and some radishes and few leaves of salad for lunch today.

Have to say lunch turned out very yummy!

And of course more planting has been done - beans were planted, both pole and bush varieties: Brittle Wax, Roc D'or, Purple Queen, Velour, Fortex, Asparagus bean, Red Noodle, French Gold, Lima and Soy beans. I'm yet to plant green beans in the small garden - Blue Lake and Tenderbush.

Then I did 4 rows of corn that my hubby likes - it will be sharing space with squashes and watermelon, which were also seeded but I'm thinking it was too early. We'll see if they grow well or not.  I planted 3 varieties of watermelon - Sugar Baby, Black Diamond and Million Bucks and 2 cantaloupe varieties.

On opposite site of the same bed I planted zucchini, yellow squash and cucumbers - Diva, pickler and marketmore. On another bed another set of cucumbers - spacemaster, endeavor, green fingers and straight eight.

I also went to the local farm and raided their nursery - added few more peppers to the ones I already had growing as they're not growing as fast as they should - so I picked up habanero and banana peppers. And I was surprised how little their selection of tomatoes was this year and how tiny they are -  mine are about a foot tall and ready to go into the ground now! But it's still too chilly for them so I'll wait at least another week to transplant.  I also got few packets of "flower mix" and sprinkled them all over the back of the garden and at the side of the house where so far we haven't been able to grow anything - if they take and bloom then great, and if not - no big loss.

And I also went to the community garden today and got my plot assigned. I was hesitant if I'd sign up to it again given busy schedule and all, but it really feels good when I know someone else can enjoy fresh organic veggies. So I'll plant zucchinis and tomatoes and some peppers there. It's all good.

Harvested greens and pretty flowers

Today was  a really great sunny and warm day so of course I spent as much time as I could in the garden. Picked some asparagus for dinner, some broccoli side shoots from overwintered plants (main  head will bloom), few chives and scallions and greens - salads, parsley, spinach, arugula, sorrel and kale.

And here are some shots of the pretty flowers, shrubs and trees that are currently in bloom.

Morel Season started!

Doing very happy mushroom-picker dance - the new Morel Season is officially here and I picked 10 first black ones in the back of the property. Definitely going hunting for them over the weekend!

First asparagus!

One of the best perks of having a garden - walking outside whenever you want to add greens to your meal and picking them fresh straight for your plate. Today's picking was few first asparagus and a snippet of parsley to finish up steak.

Just a bit more time and we'll be using many more greens for salads and snacking.

Greens and flowers

I know I'm not keeping up on posting as frequently as I should have been, but here are some updates on what's happening in the garden. Some of the seedlings that I planted were hard hit by deep freeze so I raided our local nursery for replacements.

Some still survived so I have both planted and growing.  Picture on the left are my seedlings; the right is the nursery - both beds have salads, broccoli, cabbages, cauliflower etc. The bed on the right also has onions and steaks indicating where tomatoes will be planted about a month from now - in Mid May.  Then here are some shots of newly woken up goodies - kale that was seeded last year, peas, radishes, asparagus etc.  Strawberries all have flower crowns so I hope for good results. Sorrel, Garlic chives all came back again this year.

Some of my overwintered broccoli and cauliflower started developing heads - they'll go to flower and seed this time.

Tiny bush of red Currants survived its first winter and has buds! it's hiding in the bunch of tulips. Next to it is nice red cabbage starting to form head; and then oddly shaped bed of garlic (don't ask me why half grew and half didn't).

Our blueberries are doing really nice and budding up, overwintered kale is gorgeous and first potatoes woke up at the same time as asparagus.

And then we have tons of flowers blooming and others waking - daffodils, hyacinths, tulips are blooming; peonies and bleeding heart are not far behind.

We have two new additions this spring - a new Peach and Nectarine trees to replace the ones that died. Let's hope new location will be better for them.

And our Apples, Plums, Cherries, Figs, Persimmon, Mulberry and walnut trees seem to survive the winter and budding up as well. On the new garden blackberry and raspberry bushes are also growing nicely mixed with grapes and more blueberries. Now to watch them grow and hope for good results.