Garden Update & New Plants

After a few busy weeks of life with little to write about I'm back with a quick garden update and a few new seedlings.

In the garden the garlic is looking really amazing! The shortest plants come to about my knee and a few of the taller ones reach up to mid-thigh level. The radish, arugula, and kale we planted are looking really healthy while  the leeks, red bunching onion, and butter head lettuce aren't growing at all. Oh well, that is why I over plan!! If something doesn't work I will try and squeeze something else in when the time is right!

Speaking of planning... Saturday Gail and I visited Russell's Garden Center to pick up some marigolds, our pepper and tomato seedlings and a few impulse buys: shiso, parsley, and eggplant. When we got back to our apartment and set them all down our table looked like a small jungle of marigolds and veggie plants:

The shiso and parsley were planted in the garden yesterday along with most of the marigolds. I will give the peppers and tomatoes some time indoors while it warms up. For tomatoes this year we went with:
1 Matt's Wild Cherry
1 Black Krim
2 Caspian Pink
2 San Marzano Redorta
For peppers aside from 1 Jalapeno plant I went with some new varieties:
1 Jalapeno
1 Corno Di Toro
1 Cherry Bomb
1 Thai Dragon
1 Valencia
2 Carmen
The eggplant was Gail's request and is a Fairy Tale, which look like purple monster fingers! We've never grown eggplant, and I'm excited to see how it goes.

How's your garden growing?? Are you growing anything new this year??

Harvest Monday September 19 2011

Another week, another great harvest, including some great looking carrots, the last of our peppers and some more delicious tomatoes!!
Here is a look at this weeks harvest:
Tomato - 7.92 lbs (126.65 oz)
Carrots - 4.60 oz
Bell Pepper- 3.00 oz
Jalapeno Pepper- 5.65 oz
Gypsy Pepper-4.25 oz
Wax Pepper-14.00 oz
Cubanelle Pepper- 1.26 lbs (20.25 oz)
Total for this week: 11.15 lbs (178.14 oz)
Total for the season: 50.85 lbs (813.60 oz)

Crossed the 50 pound mark! Only 13 lbs  or so to match last years total. It is going to be very close, but I think we can do it. All in all I am impressed with the nearly 15 lbs of peppers we grew this year from only 6 plants, especially the Jalapeno's. 2 small plants kept going and going until this weeks cold finished them off.

For the upcoming week I am going to weed, turn, and amend the soil for garlic planting, and slowly transition some stuff to fall garden and transition some stuff to bed.

A Plethora of Peppers

We've been treated to a plethora of peppers this week!! Wednesday I came home with a nice variety - At least one of every pepper I've got growing except Jalapeno! From Left to Right in the below picture: Bell Pepper, Hungarian Wax Pepper, Cubanelle, & a Gypsy Pepper. With the first striped roma of the season in the front:

2 days later I came back from the garden with a bigger pile of peppers. Temperatures were less humid and dropping enough that I thought it would be good to bring home more of all my peppers, including 8 Jalapenos!

If it were a little hotter for a few more weeks some of the cubanelle's and bell's would finish off nicely, but they still taste great when they are green!

Harvest Monday August 1st 2011

Peppers. A plethora of peppers is what we got for this weeks harvest. Along with a basket of dry (finally!) garlic and one more Cherokee Purple tomato! Still waiting on a Striped Roma but I have a feeling they will all come at once! You can see the garlic along with the bell pepper and the Cherokee Purple I brought home on Wednesday. More peppers came on Friday(see picture below) and on Sunday we brought another 6 Jalapeno's home, along with a container full of huckleberries!

Here's what we harvested this week:

Garlic(dry): 7.25 oz

Huckleberry: 11.10 oz

Pepper (Bell): 4.95 oz

Pepper (Cubanelle): 4.20 oz

Pepper (Gypsy): 3.40 oz

Pepper (Jalapeno): 4.70 oz

Pepper (Wax): 3.05 oz

Tomato: 5.90 oz

This week's total: 2.78 lbs (44.55 oz)

Total for the season: 12.65 lbs (202.40 oz)

If you want to see what others are harvesting or share in your own bounty visit Daphne's Dandelions the home of Harvest Monday!

Harvest Monday July 2th 2011

After the serious heatwave this week, heading to the garden yesterday morning it felt positively balmy at 85 degrees! I did some overdue weeding of the front of our plot, including pulling an old 6 foot long water pipe from the ground.

We also pulled our zucchini plants because we were not able to get any zucchini due to the pesky rabbits eating any fruit that set. Our bush beans, and now our pole bean have similar problems. I may have to give up on the pole beans altogether if they keep getting attacked so ravenously. We also harvested what was left of the remaining mesclun greens and pulled the rest for the compost pile.

Not everything was terrible though, we took home a nice variety of peppers, some chives a few baby carrots and more!

Here is a look at this weeks harvest:

Carrots: 1.00 oz

Chives: 8.00 oz

Huckleberry: 6.85 oz

Mesclun Greens: 1.50 oz

Mint: 0.35 oz

Oregano: .50 oz

Pepper (Bell): 7.85 oz

Pepper (Gypsy): 5.65 oz

Pepper (Wax): 2.00 oz

Sage: .50 oz

Total for this week: 2.1375 lbs (34.20 oz)

Total for the season: 9.51 lbs (152.20 oz)

If you want to see what other's are harvesting or share in your own bounty visit Daphne's Dandelions the home of Harvest Monday.

Tomato and Pepper Watch!

July has been great for the tomato's and pepper in the garden. After a June that featured seemingly endless rains and not many warm days July has been hot and humid!

As a result the tomatoes and peppers have been making their presence known. Here's a few pics I snapped last week:

The cubanelle's pictured above are coming on strong. 3 plants and at least 15 peppers already!

This Cherokee Purple is by far the biggest tomato I have so far. The plant its on is a little weak but this tomato is looking mighty fine!

Lastly, the Striped Roma's aren't nearly as big as the Cherokee's but there are a lot more of them.

It doesn't seem like this years tomato and pepper conditions are as good as last year, but that is fine, I am happy for each and every harvest and the experience of nurturing the plants and enjoying the bounty!

Signs of things to come

The garden has quickly transitioned from waking up to promising future delights. While weeding on Sunday I snapped a few pictures.

Our first 2 tomatoes made their presence known! Almost 2 weeks before I spotted one last year these 2 tomatoes can be found on one of the Cherokee Purple's that Gail picked out!

Not to be out done 3 bell peppers have already set fruit as well! Hopefully the cubanelle and jalapeños won't be terribly far behind!

Some of the summer (hopefully) lettuce is finally out competing the weeds as well. Here's a nice shot of some Red Cross butterhead that is reaching for the sky.

Finally, a nice pink rose, after all it's not ALL about food, just mostly.

Garden Happenings

The garden and I have come out of our winter slumber and things are slowly coming to life. The garlic is flourishing, radishes have sprouted, and the kale and arugula look pretty great. We're waiting on more lettuce, carrots, and bush beans to sprout as well. We also planted a little huckleberry plant we picked up at a local nursery.

We also picked up some beautiful looking tomato, zucchini, marigold and pepper seedlings that will be going in the ground soon.

Pictured above is our collection of pepper seedlings- jalepeno, cubanelle, and 'Golden Summer' bell pepper as well as marigolds.

Below are the Tomato and Zucchini seedlings. We are growing Speckled Roman's for sauce and Cherokee purple because Gail thought they look nice and I never met a tomato I didn't love!

In the front you can also see our 'bush baby' zucchini seedlings:

We didn't have luck with our own zucchini last year so we are going with a mini variety to save space and starting with seedlings to increase our odds this year!

The bed all the peppers, tomatoes, and most of the marigolds will be planted in is going to be worked over just as soon as the weather cooperates. Once that is done the garden will be in full production mode!

Also, my kitchen counter seed starting experiment was not very successful but if any of these mini broccoli or leeks toughen up they might find their way to the garden as well:

If the weather and critters cooperate we'll be harvesting loads of tomatoes, peppers, and hopefully zucchini!!

Tomato & Pepper Watch

While working in the garden this afternoon we saw that the first tomato and peppers had set (very small) fruits:

The tomato seedlings we got at the Natick Community Farm were not properly labeled so I'm not sure what type of tomato is pictured above. My best guess would be that it is a Peacevine Cherry Tomato.

Pictured above is of our first Hungarian Wax Pepper! The camera had difficulty getting a clear shot, but it's clearly a tiny pepper.

This last photo is from one of the Yankee Bell Pepper plants.

I'll be doing inspection of the tomato and pepper plants every few trips to the plot in order to keep track of when fruit starts to set on each of the plants.

31 Days of Gardening

I've been gardening at the Fenway Victory Gardens for 4 weeks now. Here is what the plot looked like the day we picked it out:

(April 25th-Day 1)

Here is the drastically improved look 4 weeks later:

(May 22nd-Day 28)

After this weekend I really felt that the garden was coming together and starting to show some real signs of life and future vegetables! Here's a peek at what is springing to life in plot Z-1:

-Broccoli-

-Leeks-

-Greens-

-Beets-

-Peppers-

-Tomatoes-

-Herbs-

Missing form the photo's: Cabbage, Onion, Carrots, Spinach, Potato, Kentucky Wonder pole bean, Ottawa Cranberry pole bean, Garlic Chives, & Sage.

For the Beans, Potato, Garlic Chives & Sage seedlings have not sprouted yet or are just beginning to sprout. (A trellis and a pair of makeshift trellis' have been installed for the beans and await their arrival)

The Cabbage, Onion, and Carrots have developed very slowly so there isn't even enough to take pictures of.

The Spinach is another story. Some piece in the row are starting to look like spinach, others have clearly been bothered by the encroaching bindweed which we are doing our best to keep up with.

I suspect some of the seedlings which are slowly to develop were either planted late or are the victims of soil which developed a crust after a few rough rain storms. It's still early and there is plenty to grow so stay tuned!!