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.