It's THAT time of year again

Okay, so after spending the last several dark, cold, snowy months at my computer, scouring the online seed seller websites, both big and small, I think I finally have procured all the seed varieties I could possibly want, for this season, anyway.
I have discovered some new and exciting sources, and have made some variety changes from last season; the reasons for which will be topics for future discussions.

It's that time of year again...

My very gifted daughter did this movie trailer as a class assignment last year.

"Green" Beans are Soooooo Five Minutes Ago

From left to right: Tanya's Pink Pod, Dragon's Tongue, Purple Queen, Kentucky Wonder Wax, Red Swan, and Rattlesnake. At the top, an unknown bush-type roma one of the kids planted from a bag of 12-bean soup mix (turns out it's quite good as a snap actually, may save the seeds). One cool thing about the Tanya's Pink pod is that the color seems to fade from green to pink and back green again as you turn it in your hand, much like some kinds of Indian sari fabric, an effect impossible to convey in a still photo.

The sad thing about the red/purple coloring is that once you cook them, all signs of color is gone and they look just like plain old green (or yellow) beans. Oh well. They're good raw in salads too.

An Early Harvest

Her favorite thing lately is to help me thin the carrots. Her second favorite thing is to pick peas. Which means peas and carrots are on tomorrow night's menu. The onion in the picture is one of dozens of recently pulled multiplier onions, which I am pleased to report definitely lived up to their name. That garlic wasn't really ready but I was curious to see if anything was actually developing underground, which apparently it was. But I didn't grow that zucchini -it's a gift from a friend and fellow gardener two doors down. Looks like zucchini season is starting early this year.

Random Garden Pics

Well, the two weeks off work due to a periappendiceal abscess and appendectomy have given me way more free time than I really know what to do with. I'm not supposed to "work in the yard" while recovering. The JP drain sticking out of my old c-section scar for the past week has sucked the fun out of most activities anyways (as well as 150 cc's per day of infected fluid out of my abdominal cavity). This morning said buh-bye to the 2' of tubing and attached squeezie bottle and look out world! (I have my 5-year old convinced my JP drain is a special "juice box" the doctor wants me to keep attached to my belt).

It is so nice to have a garden to come home to:

Pencil-sized purple passion asparagus spear

Potatoes have been hilled up-Green Mountain on the right, and Tom Wagner's selections in the two left rows

Yacon from an ebay seller in California


Garlic, Shallots and Potato Onions 8 months after planting

2" tall okra seedlings seem to be struggling a bit. They were planted out about 2 weeks ago, just as all the cloudy rainy weather started. I suspect they will take off as soon as we get some clear hot dry days.

Finally the first strawberry flower! Time to break out the bird netting.

Lettuce looking cool and crisp in the east bed, which is up against the house in afternoon shadow.

Pole beans of various makes and models prepare to send their first tendrils skyward

Wall O'Peas. To date, all pods have been eaten in situ.

Baker Creek's Topaz

These tomatoes are grown from a seed I saved from a Yellow Pear tomato which I crossed with Cherokee Purple pollen last summer. I know the cross took, because the shape is definitely not pear-like, and the one is already much larger than its Yellow Pear parent. I was actually hoping for a small purple pear yielding the rich Cherokee Purple taste; looks like I may get a beefsteak type instead--keeping fingers crossed for taste genes inherited from pollen parent.

Do not adjust your color settings-yes Virginia, there is a Blue Tomato.
These are currently smaller than golf balls. Very excited to see how this one progresses.

More later. Right now, I have to get back to "not working in the yard".

Passionate About Asparagus

Another box from Pinetree Garden Seeds came in the mail on Wednesday, and I have been counting the hours until the weekend when I could get my new Purple Passion Asparagus crowns into the ground! Freaky looking things, asparagus crowns:
Dug a new 10' asparagus bed today. Actually it's the south half of last year's sod heap. That part of the yard doesn't drain very well so I constructed a raised bed out of the decomposed sod. I made a shallow trench and dumped an $8 (!) bag of manure down the center, and covered that with a couple of inches of decomposed sod, which is now very rich humus. I made 10 little mounds and spread the tentacle-like roots of each crown over each mound.

Then I covered all that with a couple of more inches of humus, just a little over each crown.

The crowns are a few inches below the top of the sideboard of the raised bed, and I plan to mound at least 6 more inches on top as the summer progresses. Because of the poor drainage I chose to build up the bed this way, rather than doing what is usually prescribed-digging a 12" deep trench and planting the crowns well below grade and gradually filling it in to ground level. Hopefully my method will prevent the inevitable crown-rot and produce a comparable harvest.

By the way, my Green Mountain seed potatoes also came in the same box--But I'm way too tired from today's earth moving to do anything about them now. On the counter they will sit, "chitting" away until the bed they're to share with tubers saved from last year's colored potatoes is prepared, most likely next weekend.

The Cake Garden

I knew I was saving those flimsy plastic cake domes from supermarket-bought birthday cakes for a reason.

Though nights are still below freezing here in early April, the bed against the house, warmed by radiant heat from the foundation and dotted with plastic cake domes, becomes a microclimate for early salad fixins.

Slugs prefer pak choi 10 to 1 over spinach.



Legend has it that a circle of copper deters slugs. The science behind that claim is that copper produces a mild electric charge when in contact with moisture, and slugs find that most irritating. Unraveled copper scouring pads twisted into collars for baby pac choi look like weird plant jewelry.

What the heck is erba stella anyway? I hope it's not like arugula.

Does this seem obsessive to you?

When English Gardens called last week and said their 4cu ft bags of vermiculite were finally in, I could hardly contain myself. Prepped 8 raised beds, planted 5 raspberry bushes and 2 blueberry bushes over Easter weekend, still can't bend at the waist without shooting lower back pain, but won't admit to myself that I "overdid" it. Just today spent half an hour outside right before sunset in the pouring rain planting the peas. And I never forget to say goodbye to the seedlings on the grow shelf when I leave for work.

Let The Madness Begin

Special thanks to Dan over at the Urban Veggie Garden Blog for the HTML tutorial!