Tomatoes!!!!

Its tomato season...and my tomatoes are doing awesome.   So awesome I"m going to have to make some tomato sauce in the next 48 hours before the tomatoes start to go bad.  Last year by this point the tomatoes had picked up a blight or something and stopped production - it was cool weather related.  This summer has been a polar opposite with hot and humid the norm.  (Yes I"m looking forwrard to cool and dry weather!) 

My roma tomato is doing super - have about 2 pints ready to freeze or make into sauce.  The grape tomato is sending out lots of fruit.  The one heirloom tomato tastes SO good in BLT's. Oh, and check out the size of the fruits on this plant! Wonder what variety it is.  I just harvest off the other tomato.  Its a red tomato and was laying on its side this morning thanks to last nights wind and the heavy fruit on the plant.  Need to get it staked up better tonight.

My pole beans are blooming...well what is left of them is in bloom.  The japaneese beetles enjoyed eating them in July so the only vines with fruit on them are the ones that were stragglers in growing.

The peppers also look good.  I just brought in a red sweet pepper and the first 2 habaneros in a couple of years.  Not to find a kid safe place to keep them.

1st Day of Summer

Its a humid 1st day of summer.  The last 2 weeks have been humid...the next week is how and humid.  Much of my garden likes this weather.   I have peas that are 4' tall and full of pea pods.  I have jalapeno's that are nearly ready for harvest.  The roma tomato and cherry tomatoes have started to set fruit.  The other tomatoes are still short. 

My joy and struggle has been kholrabi.  The early ones were tasty - and I harvested my 1st the last day of May!  The problem has been cabbage worms eating all the leaves.  Where did they come from? The new dirt, The plants fom the greenhouse, the plants from my sisister???? 

The thistles continue to be a pain, too. Last Wednesday I mowed and mulched grass onto the garden,  but after the warm steamy weekend there are thistles evereywhere again.  How do I stop them?

Onions have also been a mystery - I guess they were planted to early because they have bloomed and set seed heads. Guess we'll have to eat them straight out of the garden.  That's okay. 

Off to find an onion, kohlrabi and peas to add to CSA cabbage and store carrots to make a stir fry!

OH, on a landscaping note...I should have put the Russian sage on the other side of the area and the smaller plants on this side so they can be seen from the deck.  I *think* all of my lavender are going to grow?!?  I was 100% sure only 1 made it.  Only one of the 2nd planting of daisies made it. 

Its all planted!

Laura visited this weekend and brought with her more tomatoes and peppers thant we ahve room fro in our garden.  We ended up planting 4 tomatoes - I only saved room for 3 in the garden and the other one went in the 1/2 barel with the herbs.  The herbs have not come up very well yet. 

• Tomato 1 - Grape - half barrel, thin cage
• Tomato 2 - heirloom - garden, tall cage
• Tomato 3 - heirloom ? - garden, regular cage
• Tomato 4 - roma - garden, regular cage

She also brought with her 4 varaiteys of hostas that joined the east side of the house and some Iris that are now on the west side of the house. The plants last from Laura's greenhouse treasures are 2 yellow peppers, they joined the other sweet pepper.

We visited Pecks to finish my plant shopping on Saturday.  Here is what I got & did with it...

• Jeepers Creepers - Whitley's Speedwell (Veronica whitleyi) - landscaped area near the lavender that I can't decide if its growing our not
• Jeepers Creepers - Creeping Thyme (Thymus praecox 'Elfin"
• 2 Jalapeno pepers - south edge of garden with the peppers
• 1 habenero pepper- in the middle of the spinach patch...hope the tomatoes don't over grow it like they have in the past, but did not want it on the edge of the garden in case an unsuspecting child were to have a sample of the peppers.
• Salmon pink geranium vine hanging plant for the hook on the north side of the house

We have been enjoying radishes out of the garden this week!  Its amazing to see the difference in maturity of  the kholrabi that I got from the greenhouse vs the ones that I got on Mother's Day weekend  and planted 3 weeks later!

The peas have been enjoying the summerlike temps this week and have taken off growing on the trellis, and pea gates. (Found the fencing under the deck decided to make some happy peas and gave it to them last weekend, too) The beans have all sprouted in the last 2 days as-well as lots of weeds!

Beans are in

Planted the bean seeds this morning.  Pole beans are around the pole and bush beans are in 2 short rows between the poles and peas. Peas are coming along nicely, too.  Added a 2nd tomato cage to the peas, because I found it in the shed when straightening up this morning.

Over the weekend we planted all the stuff from Laura's greenhouse including "Laura's Special" - all her extra seedlings that she stuck in a pot, we spread out a bit and stuck it in the ground just to see what happens. Still need a jalapeno pepper, habenaro pepper and 1 more sweet pepper, along with 3 tomatoes.

On the east side of the house we finally planted something - 2 varieties of hostas from the church on C ave, I can't recall its name, that had a plant sale on Saturday.  Two ice cream buckets worth of plants for $9 - I can handle that.  The backyard landscaping area looks much better this year.  The plants are fuller, and adding the smaller plants has helped too.  Now if only we could get the  lavender to grow.  The 2nd batch I got still did not grow.

Waiting for the sunshine.  The plants that are inside need WATER - so I put them on the deck hoping for a rain shower to feed them.  The garden looks like its growing well - can't wait to see what is does with some SUNSHINE! Just got an email from my sister about what she planted...

Hi,
Karla the peppers I gave you are Ferry Morse California Wonder 300 TMR Pepper.

The cabbage I planted are Copenhagen Market. The package shows green Cabbage but its from Dollar General. So maybe that's why they are purple cabbage.

I have 4 Yellow Belle peppers.
4 Rutgers Tomato
4 Roma Tomato
4 Hungarian Heart Tomato from Seed Savers Exchange.
What ever Keith planted for Tomatoes
Purple Vienna Kohlrabi.

What do you want for your Garden? 

Mom, Dad said your tomatoes go in the raised bed.

Laura 

Mother's Day bonus

Mother's Day weekend was COLD!  We were in north central Iowa near the Ia/Mn border and they had frost on the ground.  We only ate asparagus 1 time - and there was no extra to bring home. *bummer*

I knew my sister had started some seeds in the greenhouse where she works.  She used Dad's old seed - and had great success. I came home with a flat full of plants.  Now to wait for the rain to stop and things to dry out a bit.

Here is what is on the flat of plants:

• 6 kohlrabi
• 2 peppers (sweet?)
• 2 red cabbage
• 1 mixed pot - the pot my sister threw all of her "extra" seedlings in when she transplanted into larger cells...and they are all alive
• 2 brussle sprouts
• 6 marigolds
• 1 coral bell - from Mom's flower garden...from my Aunt...from her Aunt...the best kind of plant!
• 1 pansy - given to all the mom's at church.

So I just need tomatoes, a jalapeno pepper or two, some sunshine to get the beans in the garden, and some creative space planning to figure out where I am going to put all of these wonderful plants. Oh and some hastas for the east side of the house - I hope to pick these up this weekend at a church on C Ave's plant sale.

Peas are up

Last weekends rain helpd the peas, radishes and spinach to emerge!  Yay!  I was digging in the garden yestarday and we could use more rain.  The top 3-4" are dry.  Might have to use the hose after today's sunny, warm and windy conditions. 

Sunday I decided I needed a trellis for my peas and beas...well I knew I needed one but didn't know how to build it.

To build the "pea gate" replacement I used stuff we already had - an extra tomato cage, some plastic fencing leftover from another project and zip ties.  I did purchase some twine string.

The bean pole trellis was built from bamboo - not sure I"m done playing  with it.  Wish I could recall the site I saw my inspriation on.  I used 4 bamboo poles and twine string.  I need one more pole across the top and then need to figure out how to plant the bean seeds around it...hopefully that will be done early next week.

I'll try and take pics one of these afternoons when things are quiet.

I did plant herb seeds with the kids help - refilled the 1/2 barrel with 2 bags of dirt and they put in the seeds and then took a piece of plastic fence - think squared off chicken wire - to cover the planter to keep the critters out.  What critters? The 2 legged variety that roam my backyard daily and removed the 2 bags of dirt that were previously located in this barrel.  I still need to attach the fence but figure the herbs will grow up through the holes and that they will actually have a chance at life that way!

Somethings growning

Saturday we went to visit both Culvers and Pecks garden centers looking for Dogwood bushes to put in our front yard...we found them at Pecks.  I was not expecting them to get planted on Sunday, but they did!  Way to go Muscle Man!

Pecks was having their Spring Open House, we took advantage of their specialsand purchased lavendar, stevia and rosemary plants on sale along with a 6 pack of kholrabi - that made it into the garden today!  I've had the kholrabi outside for the last few days hardening it off and decided not was as good of a time as every to plant it. 

I think we are going to like the larger garden.  I also just planted an entire package of peas (Ferry Morse - Melting sugar - Snow Peas) The package says they are the early variety, can tolerate light frost and they don't like heat so I decided to plant them now and see what happens.  I was excited to get 3 rows and still feel like there is room in the garden - this has never happened before, lol. Still need to put in a trellis for the peas, don't think I have any "pea gates" left.  That's what Big Bird called the 3' sections of fence we used a couple of years ago for a trellis.

I also planted an entire package of radishes (Ferry Morse - Radish Easter Egg II Mixture) and Spinach (Ferry Morse/Organic - Bloomsdale, long standing.  I thought I was gong to doubble seed the area with the radishes and spiniach with the beans in a month, but I had enough room to plant the 2 packages and still have space for bean planting mid-May. Radish days to harvest: 28
Spinach days to harvest: 45
Peas days to harvest: 72

Oh, and the onions are up and look great - I'm sure watering them helped.  We haven't had any rain in a couple of weeks so it has been quite dry...not sure  how the grass seed is going to do with this dry weather.

The layout of the 2010 garden
East End Onions - white and yellow
Peppers will go next (n-s)
Peas and Beans (e-w)
Spinach and Radish (n-s)
Three tomatoes will go on the west end with the kholrabi planted under.


Today's funny: I told Little Bird to stay out of the gareden when he plays in the back yard...I put in some sticks and signs with veggie names on them to mark rows and crops...he says "Mom does that say "STAY OUT OF THE GARDEN?" "Um, Yes it does." Cause if that doesn't work I'm going for chicken wire!!!

2nd post today!

Just before rest time my 3 year old walked into the house with a handful of chives..."Here Mom we picked these for our pizza tonight!"

He is not afraid to pick, and eat chives straight from the garden!

Early Spring update 2010

We are working to expand our garden a bit - ended up adding 4ft to the west end of the garden. Hope this helps a bit to reduce the crowded feeling I've had the last few years trying to fit everything I want to grow into my garden. Last weekend we dug up the sod and put a new timber in to expand the garden. Weather permitting we have a tiller reserved for this weekend to till the new end of the garden.

It has been SO hard to not try and plant the garden this week. Our temps have been SO mild. Today is a reality check- its still warm, but not the 70's that we have enjoyed the last week. Today's highs are to be in the mid 60's, much more seasonally appropriate. We did plant yellow and white onion bulbs last weekend. I have 4 rows each about 3-4ft log of onions. Last year I inter-planted my onions with my tomatoes and that actually worked well because the onions were out before the tomatoes were to crazy.

About a month ago I started some pepper seeds. About 2 weeks ago one of my day care children had fun playing in the seedlings that I had sitting in the sunshine on a chair. Oh well. I can always get seedlings from the greenhouse! Someday we will have a south facing window for plants - this house just does not offer the windows or the space for that option.

Let me think back...What do I remember about last summer's garden?

• The beans did not grow well, but the ones that did grow were tasty
• The peas did not grow well.
• The tomatoes grew quickly but quit producing mid-August. They had some kind of blight. The cool temperatures in July and August may be part of that - temps were in the 70's and low 80s most of late summer. Roma tomatoes are a short plant...save the taller tomato cage for tomatoes with more vines and use a shorter cage with a Roma.
• Peppers are always a good thing to grow in my garden. Sweet peppers freeze WELL. Jalapeno poppers with cream cheese and bacon are YUMMY! Need to try to make and freeze them this year. I still have a bag or two of jalapeno peppers in the freezer. Don't try to dry jalapeno's, it just does not work; Maybe if we had a dehydrator it would be better.
• Kohlrabi is still one of my favorites! To grow and eat
• Onions grew better than I expected.

We also planted the "landscaped" area that was dug up in 2006 last summer. The grass, Russian sage, one lavender and other plant that I can't remember right know grew wonderfully. The rest never grew. I just emailed Gurnseys to get a copy of my order for replacements. The plants that came back look very healthy so far!

Split the grass clump on the west side of the house earlier this spring. All my tulips and daffodils there are in full bloom, already! Need to plant MORE DAFFODILS towards the north side of the house and some later blooming tulips, too. The salmon colored ones I have bloom on the early end of things.