GARDEN REPORT

No particular order:

New Pepper seedlings started.

5 varieties of hot

6 varieties of sweet bell.

Above are my older seedling (tomatoes mostly) that we've been giving away.


Right side of the big garden. These were my 2 cherry toms & 3 big toms. Very out of control. The big toms are slowing down production but the cherrys are unstoppable. I'll have a close-up down below. That shed is over 6 ft.

Basil from seed. Just testing myself to see if I could do it. Sure enough, it worked as God intended it to. I let my original plant in the big garden go to flower then seed. After the seeds were well-dried out, I put them in dirt. It took much longer to germination than tomatoes.

Because I love a bigger challenge, I read that you could cultivate basil from cuttings and so I had to do that too. Here is one of those. Definitely faster method. These are already in the ground in my new Garden 2 (picture forthcoming).

Ok, here is Garden 2. Small but in full-sun. I put 3 peat pots of cherries and 3 peat pots of Big Boy toms, 2 basil cuttings and 1 garlic clove. Sorry, the cropping of the photo does it no justice. I know I put a lot in this little spot but I thought I would end up caging the entire wall section and holding the vines to that. They should be to the roof by May.

Here is the future home of Garden 3 which isn't turned over yet. We can't get the tiller working. This is the far side of the house. It gets some sun but mostly the fence will partially shade whatever we put here. I've about decided that my hot peppers will all be here. One reason being here because hot peppers will cross-polinate with sweet bell peppers and the next generation of seedlings of sweet will turn hot (or so I read last night). So, hots will be here and sweets in whatever room I have in the big garden. (or vice versa)

Further down this fencing, I'm thinking beans & cucumbers but that is still a dream. After shopping this weekend and seeing the new increase in prices, I'm thinking I may need to farm the entire backyard.

Here are my spinach. I thought I'd pull up all my leafy lettuce and replace them with spinach. Leafy lettuce creeps me out. It grows well, but when it comes down to eating it,....... no thanks.

Between both gardens, I think I have approx 20 plants.

Here is my garlic plant. I haven't a clue what I'm doing but I'm willing to stick it in the ground and experiment. Any advice welcomed.

Here is a close-up of the toms in Garden 2. We had multiple seeds in the cherry pots so that's why you see a huge bunching. I didn't have the heart to decide which ones were weaker. None looked weak to me. Btw, that reminds me to put a plug in for Moisture Control potting soil. Blue bag. Can't remember if Miracle Grow was the maker or not. Anyhow, it is fabulous for seedling starter kits.

Here is the *new* left side to Garden 1: 8x16'. All those carrots and lettuce were pulled. My original sweet basil was transplanted to the back corner since it refuses to stay small. My brussels are taking their sweet time but have buds so I've allowed them to stay a little longer. I pulled some small cauliflowers that weren't going to make it. I've put in my new seedling and am leaving a little space for the new future peppers. The right side of the garden is primarily those out-of-control toms you see above. Also, I have the rest of the carrots, cauliflower, iceberg lettuce seedlings and a set of onions.

A hundred million ka-trillion dollars to whoever can guess how many cherry tomatoes are in this picture. What happened was that all these vines were hanging down to the ground, blocking light for the brussels & sweet peppers beside them. So, I tied everything up about 5' or so. When I did that, it displayed all these hiding babies!!! Honestly, I didn't count, but I'm thinking there are easily 75 marbles there.

Here are those short-n-sweet carrots from the lft side of the garden. They've been in the ground since August and I guess they're just never going to be the long carrots that I wanted. They taste great too but I went ahead and replaced them with Danver carrots this spring. I put those seeds in the ground today.

The coolest thing is that Jack, who was originally only wanting 1 or 2 plants, has gotten 110% onboard with the gardening. While he'll never be vegan or vegetarian, he has upped his healthy eating thanks to my gardening. He loves to walk through it and see what's growing.

Between prices and pesticides, home gardening has been welcomed addition to our lifestyle. I really don't know what I'm doing but I'm eager to google & read. My Dad always had some tomato plants around the house. I hope one day, I'll see tomato plants in my sons' yards.

Happy Gardening -- Robin