Going Pretty Good

Everything seems to have taken off and is now running except the poor yellow squash not sure what's going on there but it needs replacing. The eggplant I do believe has maybe stalled out due to the zucchini leaf covering it, gotta get to work training those things.


The beans seem a lot fuller earlier this year and the strawberries are producing.


The early girl tomatoes are probably all going to finally come ripe at the same time but luckily I'm prepared with a recipe for tuna bites to use them all.


Here's that poor little squash and eggplant and the mother of zucchinis.


The green onions are about to get whacked for some scallion pancakes to go with a chinese dinner this weekend and the jalapeno is waiting for some heat to kick it into gear, the carrots are going much faster this year dunno what's different.


The lettuce is ready to become wraps for chicken at that chinese dinner and the cilantro is trying it's best to squeeze in beside it, I've got to find some instructions for drying out or freezing the oregano since I don't think it'll like the coming heat too well.

This year is already looking better than last, with all the coolness and weird rain we've been having the watering schedule is a mess but it doesn't seem to be bothering the plants.

The hummingbirds haven't decided if they are here to stay yet and only seem to show up around dusk but they've been loving the honeysuckle that's in full bloom.

Continued Already in Progress

So I pretty much quit updating the blogs last summer when things started getting a little hectic around here, but we did keep up the garden. The final harvests probably could have been better especially if we'd known what we were doing to begin with. This year the garden is pretty much all my doing, mom has had some health problems that make standing and bending for any amount of time difficult so it's all up to me now. Hopefully she'll be in better condition by the time the bugs really start to invade in mid summer (I just cannot deal with the spiky caterpillars just, no.)

Before we started this year I made a plan of what to keep and what to get rid of and what I was going to plant. Luckily Dad already had a plan to raise the boxes even higher than the just off the ground we had last year.
So now the tops of the boxes sit just about waist height for me and mom being under 5'4" as we are, so much easier on the lower back and upper legs just from the couple weeks I've been working in them.

Believe me when I say if you are going to do raised boxes, go higher earlier!! like before you ever put anything in them, these boxes must have weighed in at about 150-200 lbs full of soil like they were, not easy on the back at all to lift from the ground.

The beans and strawberries box got moved a little more west to get good sun across the whole box and the lettuce and herb box was moved to the other end of the patio to take better advantage of the early morning light.

We kept the lackluster strawberries that had wintered over, I'm hoping this year they'll truly produce, the early girl tomato was also saved since it was putting out a few tomatoes a month all winter. Also the beautiful bunch of parsley and the oregano that finally decided to show up have been saved.


So this years plan is for lettuce cilantro and chives added to the parsley and oregano box, a new cherry tomato and another mid size tomato called Celebrity, jalapeno and poblano replacing the bell pepper from last year (we have ziplocks full of frozen bell for this year) carrots and green onions which always do great.

Instead of trying the hanging deal again I have the yellow squash, zucchini and eggplant all in one box together and will start earlier on training the vines up. I also added another dozen strawberries to the dozen or so we had left from last year and replanted the kentucky wonder pole beans.

Hopefully more pictures to come!

Another Harvest and Garden Pics

We made another harvest this week, a couple more squash, zucchini, a good handful of strawberries that had not been half eaten and we went ahead and cut back some cilantro and lettuce.

Here's the first box, the beans have taken off and are blooming now so beans aren't far behind. You can almost see our cat keeper offer on the lettuce and herb box, we set some bamboo stakes into the corners and suspended more of the bird netting over the top of the box. So far this has worked and kept the cats out of the box. The pour little tomato we thought was done for after the wind storm has come back to life with the help of another bamboo stake, it's got a nice sized tomato waiting for color on it now and plenty of blooms.

Boxes 2 and 3 have really filled in now. The squash and zucchini are both doing great, the jalapenos have started to form and are almost to harvesting size, the onions are going crazy and we have little baby carrots going to town. The cucumbers are finally starting to take off and we picked our first the other day, it's kinda bent looking but it's a cucumber. The bell peppers I was worried about, the blooms kept falling off before doing anything and I've found it to be they weren't getting as much water as they like, I've upped the watering schedule and they get a nice big drink just for them as well.

You can just see the tip of the hanging eggplant we installed over the boxes, I'll do a better post on that later, it has taken off and changes everyday.

The rest of the tomatoes! The cherries are going to overflow here soon, there are something like 10 little bunches all looking to be ready right on top of each other, good thing Joe eats them like candy. The new little tomato has taken off and has a couple of blooms going so we'll be able to compare all three fruit sizes here soon.

It seems as soon as I take pictures something grows and changes but it will make for a great slideshow by the end of summer.