first (slicing) tomatoes

The San Marzanos have been coming in for about a week. But today I picked a monster Yellow Bradywine and a nice Boxcar Willie - as well as a few handfuls of other veggies.

two harvest in three days

(There were another ten yukons last night but I forgot to snap a photo.)

So the heatwave is finally over! We had another week of 90* temps (on the coast!) and incredible humidity.
But the garden likes it.
The green beans have been so prolific I can barely keep up. And the zucchini plants have hit their peak, where if you don't pick them when they're perfect and tiny, then they triple in size overnight.
The gladiolus are going nuts. I've cut about seven and they are just beginning. They bloom in succession by color. Every one so far has been a rich orangey red and the ones budding up now look pink.

garlic harvest

Twenty-two heads (minus a few early ones I snatched) on the front porch to cure in the shade! Half look perfect half are starting to bust out of the bulb, so I guess I could have harvested last week.
This garlic came from a friend of my mom's and is supposedly a Sicilian heirloom. Whatever it is, it smells so sweet and perfumey and unlike the potent stink of grocery store garlic.

the hard truth

I have to fess up that keeping with succession planting and diligent weeding is too much for me this summer. The manure spread in the spring has done less for the mammoth thriving produce that i'd hoped for and more for encouraging thick green grass to grow between everything.
I guess I've done alright so far, with several small harvests and lots of cut flowers, considering it's still early July. But it's been hot and the season seems two weeks ahead so I'm looking at the beds and the ambitious hobbyist in me thinks I can rip out all the weeds and spent plants, and replace them all with a new blanket of carrot seed, potatoes, and squash. Alas, the busy young mother in me knows I'll be lucky if I can get the place weed-whacked and hope that my red chipolinis don't get COMPLETELY choked out!
Champagne problems. Look at my pretty snaps!

garden meals

With a one-year-old and a four-year-old I have a hard time getting much garden work done, let alone remembering to photograph it! But the beds are full and coming along nicely. Yesterday was around 95 degrees and today should be closer to 100! After a very cool Spring, I think this will jump start those tiny emerging San Marzanos.

I've made 2 garden meals so far this season. The first was heavy on the salad greens with a warm baby Yukon potato salad. The second was egg topped grilled pizzas! Hard to beat. My cornmeal pizza dough topped with garden peas, a baby zucchini, herbs, and store bought leeks. The eggs of course were from my uncle's Rhode Island Reds next door. I'm so spoiled.

potting up!

I re-potted my zucchini a couple of weeks ago and they instantly went little-shop-of-horrors on me. So I decided to wait on the tomatoes because I'm short on indoor growing space.
Well they can wait no more, the poor little buggers are cramped. I was able to get to about 32 of them yesterday: all San Marzano and Cherokee Purple. Hopefully I'll get the rest done today or tomorrow. Since I only have a few grow lights (and my house has nearly no direct sunlight) I'll be moving a couple of flats to my mom's house, which has big south facing windows. Hopefully the tomatoes thrive like the zukes.
I'm planning to start setting everything out in about 3 weeks. All garden growth seems about 3 weeks ahead of schedule this year so I think that will be safe.

germination trays

I see a lot of transplanting in the near future.

2012 indoor sowing complete

The onions are coming along nicely. I ended up filling the tray with all onions and decided to start tomatoes in cells again.
Here's the list:

San Marzano - 18
Cherokee Purple - 12
Box Car Willie - 6
Hillbilly - 6
Brandywine - 9 Red, 9 Yellow
Zucchini (raven) - 8
Summer Squash (gentry) - 4

Luckily I can set the onions out in early April, because I'm going to need lots of room when I transplant these babies up!

*incidentally, it brings me immeasurable joy when my 3.5 year old come in when I'm planting seeds and says, "are you planting yellow Brandywine, red Brandywine?"

onion-ettes

Pretty nice germinating.

first seeds started

Tonight I sowed a bunch of onions! My first time trying onions from seed. I've always had poor results with onion sets. They make great spring onions, but I never get anything resembling a big round bulb. These are a large storage onion from Burpee. I'd love to grow enough so that I won't need to buy grocery store onions for a while.

In a few weeks I'll add tomatoes to the tray. Onions and tomatoes are the only things I'm starting indoors this year. I'll plant four tomato varieties: San marzano, Cherokee purple, red Brandywine, and yellow Brandywine. Growing tomatoes indoors makes me so happy. It's like a little nursery. Squeal!

this blanket of snow is a blanket of woe

Saturday we got 9" of snow. I shouldn't pout too much, it's the only significant snow fall this winter. And it's rapidly melting today as temps are in the 40's.
I washed and dried one large seed tray and will likely start onions soon. I'm excited to grow onions from seed. I hope I get some large ones. Sets have always been disappointing for me, beyond spring onions.

gardening on new year's eve (eve)

So far this has been an exceptionally mild winter. Fear of global warming aside - it's been nice. This morning we helped my uncle as he planted nearly 200 garlic cloves in his garden.
Up the road a little, in my far more modestly sized garden, I finally cleared out the summer's debris. With the arrival of baby #2 in May I hardly had time to harvest anything, let alone actually do garden work. But this week I was able to pull dead plants, dispose of rogue subsoil potatoes and fertilize. I turned in about 25 gallons of partially composted cow manure then planted thirty-some of my own garlic. Today I employed my brother's muscle to top-dress with another 25 gallons of manure. (so much for letting the beds rest in 2012)
I decided to leave the Glads and dahlias in the ground so I threw some hay on them and we'll see if they survive the winter. Part experiment, part lazy.
In 2012 I'd like to start beautifying my garden area. I'm think of mulching all the pathways (with wood mulch instead of hay this time). I'd also like to plant some climbing vines on the fences. I'd love some mandarin honeysuckle and probably some clematis if I can find a white one. I think my girls would really enjoy if I could make it secret garden-y.

August 1st harvest

More potatoes, a few shallots and a mouth full of green beans.
It is SO dry out. We have had a week of humid upper 80's. I watered pretty well yesterday but everything looks limp again. Rain would be nice.

last day of July

With new baby Iris, the garden obviously doesn't have my full attention this year, but there are some crops that never disappoint me. This is the second year of my glad corms and they are giving tons of blooms! I planted zuccs and summer squash late, and sowed the seeds directly so they're just starting to give. And I think the heatwave killed my potato plants. They all look dead but when I pulled one up there were still a few immature spuds underneath, which makes me think the plant wasn't done. But there are still plenty of big guys.

The butternuts and watermelon are coming along slowly in the bed with nasturtium. I fertilized a lot but might need to do it again since they are in last year's tomato bed, and it's probably pretty stripped of nutrients.

The sunflowers got tall but the same insect pests from last year found them and stripped them pretty good. And our woodchuck has gotten the better of my beloved green beans.

I stuck in about 10 tomato plants from the local greenhouse (Celebrity, I think) and there's a bunch of green golf ball sized fruits now. Also, lots of shallots, though some are puny.

I know it would be wise to take next year off from vegetables and let the beds replenish with a cover crop. It might also be a good excuse to focus my attention solely on perennials and landscaping. I mean if I'm not buying seeds and slips I'll finally have an excuse to buy camellias!
Though I might go loca without veggies. Time for some soul searching.

Carrots!

I was about 9 months pregnant when my carrots needed thinning...so they never really got thinned...so they never really got big. Today I decided I should finally harvest all of the tiny yet plentiful roots. There was a nice little bounty. Plenty to freeze, plenty to share, and enough left over for carrot cake. 
Best of all I've just cleared half a bed (16 sq. feet) for new planting. I think more carrots, more green beans, and some beets.  

first spring harvest 2011 - spinach!

Here's a hefty spinach salad with some parsley for lunch! Yay!
It was especially fun to pick because I was simultaneously having contractions, waiting for my overdue baby to show up. Maybe some gardeny awesomeness will convince her.

I also planted 2 "crimson red" rhubarb plants in the front flower garden the other day.

Today's sowing

Well I never knew tomatoes would self sow in my zone. The third photo shows a few of the little seedlings that I've been pulling. There everywhere! I'm not growing tomatoes this year and they apparently miss me. My due date is tomorrow and that's pretty inconvenient for tending baby toms indoors - so I've decided to skip them. I've read it was best to pick these self sowers to avoid diseases anyway.

This year I'm dedicating last year's tomato bed to Waltham butternuts and Crimson Sweet watermelons. I planted seeds for both today and will thin to 3 seedlings of each. Yesterday I planted lots of Alaska nasturtium in there too. Hopefully I can have better luck with these this year. Last year I put them in my experimental front plot and they lost to weeds and drought. These beds are way more fertile and controlled, so I'm hopeful.

Fuzzy photo #1 shows the progress of my garlic, shallots, and spinach. Fuzzy photo #2 is of the potato bed. Little Beverly planted a pack of marigolds in there this morning. There's still open space waiting for our sweet potato slips.

Finally, I crammed sunflower seeds in every last spot! Thanks to some leftovers from last year and some seeds from my friend Shawn, I planted Russian Mammoth, Golden Cheer, Peach Passion, Jade, and Vanilla Ice. Fingers are crossed.

happy earth day!

Yesterday I planted some kale seedlings and some beautiful snapdragons! My daughter wanted pink snaps (of course) and I also grabbed this cool red/orange color.
Most everything I have planted so far has sprouted. In this bed you can see baby spinach in the first few rows, then some shallots breaking through their skin, then the kale, and in the back is my very happy garlic. This bed still has some open space for sweet potato slips which should arrive in about a month. Also once the spinach has come and gone I will put zucchini and summer squash in it's place.
Since today is earth day (and sunny, yahoo!) a few relatives and I will go for a walk up and down the road picking up trash. It's great to live surrounded by protected land but not so great when people cover it with cans of Natty Ice.

2011 Garden Season Begins

Today was the day I've been waiting for. It was sunny, snow-less, and my brother was on spring break. Since I'm almost 8 months pregnant right now I had to depend on my generous brother, Ian, to wield the shovel for me.

First order of business - garlic sprouts! This is the first time I've grown garlic. I planted the hardneck cloves last fall and they somehow survived this terribly cold winter, in spite of the fact that I never got around to mulching them.

Secondly, as my two-year-old daughter and I cleared out the herb and flower bed we discovered that parsley is a perennial in our yard. I planted them as seedlings last year from a place in Westport called Figuerido's. I will be buying from them again.

And the biggest news, the beds are ready! They've been cleaned of rocks, weeds, tomato cages, and old carrots. They've been fertilized with cow manure and plant-tone, amended with a bail of peat and raked (thank you, Ian). I sowed 16 square feet with carrots and about half that with spinach.

Stay tuned for - potatoes!

roots!

I recently remember that I had some carrots left unharvested! Unfortunately I though of this when it was well below freezing and the ground was solid. Two weeks and 10 inches of snow later, I got 'em. They're a mix of varieties since in September I just through in a bunch of seeds in empty spaces (mokum, scarlet nantes, touchon). But they all seemed to handle the winter pretty well. I like leaving carrots in the ground until the new year, it makes for an exciting gardening treat at a time when there's otherwise only seed catalogues.