The Year Ahead

I've got some big plans for this year and I thought I'd share them. My garden last year was basically nonexistent (for multiple reasons), but I think (I hope) I've got things figured out this year. Last spring, I lost most of my seedlings when my tiny greenhouse was blown over in a storm...a tragedy that was multiplied by missing the harvest on most of the plants I did actually get in the ground. I did a lot of traveling last spring and summer...not conducive to having a garden! In fact, you can see the aftermath of one of my trips here:

Yikes...

One big success from last year was that I discovered a service called Chipdrop. They connect you with arborists working in your area. I had a mountain the size of two VW buses (!!!) of freshly chipped cherry chips dropped on my driveway in August. Those wood chips mulched every bed on our property several inches deep with a ton leftover. My sweet husband decided took the initiative to use the chips that were left to build me a new (gigantic) bed at the back of the yard. I'm slowly filling it with perennials of both the edible and ornamental variety.

Understanding my goal-oriented nature, I sat down a couple weeks ago and wrote out a few for this year. I've even already accomplished a few of them! Here they are:

• Enlarge existing raised beds to 4'x8' (I've already done this, but they were 4'x4'...pictures will be forthcoming!)
• Build an arch trellis between the two most northern beds for beans, butternut squash, etc.
• Plant blueberries. I tried this last year and both bushes died from drought during one of my trips. New bushes have been ordered, so I'm halfway there on this one.
• Plant a dwarf fruit tree that is self-pollinating in the new bed at the back of the yard. I've chosen to plant (and have already ordered) a pie cherry called a Northstar Dwarf. I'm hoping it will arrive this week!
• Plant an asparagus bed. This has already been done.
• Transplant Japanese Maple to new bed at the back of the yard. This is done!
• Move the rhubarb to a place where it is less likely to be stepped on.
• Keep good notes on the garden. I've started this, so I just have to keep it up!

And here's the biggie: May-December (and earlier/later if I can manage it), I want to purchase no produce from the grocery store. 

Now, between the garden and our CSA share, this should mostly be no problem. But the only fruit our CSA farm does is strawberries, and my fruit trees and bushes are a few years away from fruiting. I'll have rhubarb from my own garden, and have plans to purchase extra strawberries from the CSA farm for canning and freezing, but that leaves out a lot. My plan is to purchase fruit in bulk from farmers while it's in season. I'll do the same thing with corn since our CSA farm doesn't grown corn, and I would rather keep the garden space for other things.

This last goal in particular is going to take some work on my part. I'm going to be busy canning, pickling, freezing, and drying in order to have enough to last, hopefully, through the winter. However, I know the difference in nutrition and flavor will be my payoff. I might even have a reduced grocery bill!

State of the Vegetable Garden, May 2013

Whew! I know I haven't written about gardening lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been toiling away! So here's a post to catch you all up. Warning: it's long!

The seeds I had leftover from last year, and the ones that I ordered have all been started, and I've got some of the seedlings planted in the garden boxes. Sadly, not all of them yet though!

Just in the past couple days, the garden has seen great improvement! I spent a good bit of the day planting herbs (sage and basil) in pots to put around the retaining wall

The rhubarb was already there, but I have plans to make strawberry rhubarb pie next weekend!

And my ever-helpful buddy Patrick came over to help me build another garden box, so now I have three, and we have plans to build another one on Monday! We were going to build both yesterday, but ran out of light by the time we got the first one finished.

Oh! and may I introduce my newest garden helper? Meet Betsy Lou.

She is a sweet, young (only a year and a half) rescue. I have been fostering dogs for an East Nashville rescue called East C.A.N. and was fostering Betsy for them, but the hubs and I talked, and we decided she's home :-) Seger loves having a little sister (even if she is MUCH bigger than him...she's 70 lbs!!) and the two of them spend lots of time in the backyard running and playing.

Ok....back to gardening....I harvested my first crop of peas yesterday. Those are going gangbusters. They've actually grown taller than the trellis.

 You can see where I've planted some lettuce. It's not very big yet, and it looks like it maybe got dog smashed....*sigh*

These are the lemon tree tomatoes (not all of them....there are more planted elsewhere, and still to be planted!). 

These (to the left) are trionfo violetto beans. Even their stalks are purple! I can't wait to see what they look like as they get a little bigger.

These (to the right) are a variety of onion sent home with me by Patrick. I guess they grow onions at the top of the plant as well as growing them as a root. My mom says they might be Egyptian walking onions....anyone know for sure?

Bonus shot of the garden box layout. I think the fourth one is going to end up on the far end of the line. Eventually I'd like to have a total of eight, but we'll see what happens!

The blueberry bush has gotten a lot bigger, and is already putting on berries. Hopefully I'll have a good crop this year.

In the retaining wall bed, I planted various herbs and flowers that are coming up. There's dill....

....and sage....

...and nasturtiums....

....and I think these might be asiatic lilies. Not sure yet. I kept pulling them last year because I thought they were weeds, but I'm pretty sure someone actually put these here on purpose haha.

 The tea rose is putting on buds. The ones in front have already finished their first round of blooms and are getting ready for a second. Doesn't this one look like it's ready to burst open?

Oh, and I keep waiting and waiting for the garlic to be ready to pull. I thought it was supposed to be ready in the spring, but I also know you aren't supposed to pull it till the leaves die, so I guess I'll keep waiting....

I dug up this spot just this morning to plant the faerie watermelon, and a few sunflowers. I have a lot more digging to do to plant all those sunflower seeds though!

 My lemon balm has come back with a vengeance! I'm seeing more cocktails in my future....maybe a jelly? Anyone have any ideas??

This mint was, I think, accidentally passed along to me by my voice teacher and his wife. They gave me a bunch of flowers to put in my flower beds out front, but I'm not sure if this was supposed to be in there or not! It looks a little sad right now....probably because it's a clump of dirt sitting on dry leaves (need to fix that), but knowing how hardy mint is, I think it'll be alright until I can get my hands on some more potting soil.

Oh, and here are the first of my container tomatoes. I need to prop it up with something....hmmmm....

Kudos to you if you seriously just read all that. How is your garden looking? Did you plant anything super neato/unusual this year?

The Fruits of My Labor

I decided my cereal needed a little perking up this morning, so I just took myself out to the patio to pick some of my newly ripe strawberries! Aren't they pretty? They certainly were a lot less expensive than the ones at the grocery store!

Update from the Vegetable Garden

Garden update part three...it's been a few days now since I took these pictures and the weather has cooled of a LOT. There was a frost advisory last night and another for tonight. Here's hoping everything pulls through! I've brought a few things inside, but that's not possible for everything. That said, I present the veggie garden.

Look at those peas! They're climbing the tomato cages nicely, and if you look beyond, you can see the green beans I planted a couple weeks ago. It always amazes me how fast those puppies grow!

The first planting of lettuce is coming along nicely. I'm seeing salad in my near future!

And here is the beginnings of the second planting of lettuce. Last year I (unwisely) planted all my lettuce seeds at once and we were completely overrun. This year, I am trying successive plantings so I only get as much as I can eat at any given time.

If you look closely, you can see where the blueberry has been doing its pollinating thing. I'm really looking forward to some homegrown blueberries!

You can see how my seedlings are coming along. I put some of my tomatoes in larger containers to see if they'll grow larger root systems before I transplant them. I also wanted to be able to keep them in the greenhouse for a little while longer since we're getting some cooler weather.

About to Bloom

I'm pretty excited to report that I have a couple plants that are about to burst into bloom!

My daffodils are one.

Look at the big old bud on there! Looks like I'll have some sunny flowers in a few days.

Also, the blueberry is about to flower. The buds on this one are pretty tiny, but you can make out their pink-tipped buds if you look real close.

I can't for the life of me figure out how to make my camera take a true close up photo without getting blurry on me! Any suggestions??

I have some more seed starting to do today (some more tomatoes, dill and red-leaved perilla), along with a greenhouse cover to fix (the one storm casualty), I've put grommets on it, but need to redo some of the zip ties so it will close all the way.

Blueberries and Tulips

I think I mentioned a while back that I ordered a dwarf blueberry bush called "Sunshine Blue" from Park Seed Co. Well, it arrived this morning and when my husband brought the box in the house looking confused, I got really excited. We went to Home Depot to get some potting soil and I went to work!

Here is what the bush looked like when I pulled it out of the box. I was expecting a bare root transplant, but I think this was probably easier to work with.

I already had a large container from an ornamental banana tree that outgrew its welcome. I took that up the hill to the garden area where it will get plenty of sunshine and filled it with potting soil.

Then I placed the baby blueberry, filled the pot the rest of the way and watered it well to settle the soil.

I'd say it was a success! Here is another picture...

While we were at Home Depot getting soil, my husband spotted the blooming flowers. We ended up walking out with a lot more than we'd planned! But he continually surprises me with the things he points at and says "Ooohh I like that! We should get some of those!" We left with some white and purple violas (I'm going to have to retake my pictures of those....will post tomorrow!) and some dramatic red tulips.

Do you ever buy flowers on a whim? What is growing in your garden?

Seeds have arrived!

My seeds arrived in the mail yesterday afternoon. I ordered from Park Seed Co. based in Greenville, SC (not too far from the family home). I find that it is less expensive than Burpee, and allows me to put some money into an economy that is, if not local to me in Nashville, is local to the economy that the rest of my family operates in.

Since it's raining and thunderstorming today, I think I will take the time to chart out exactly when I need to start the seeds for them to be ready for transplanting at the proper time.

Where do you order your seeds from? When do you start planting?

2012 Planting List

I just ordered my seeds for the year! Here is my planting list for this year:

Vegetables

1. Green Beans (Blue Lake, bush type)
2. Peas (Sugar Lace)
3. Tomato (Costoluto Genovese and a container hybrid)
4. Jalapenos
5. Bell Peppers
6. Yellow Squash (Enterprise Hybrid)
7. Lettuce
8. Mustard Greens

Herbs

1. Basil (Mrs. Burn's Lemon)
2. Red Leaved Perilla
3. Dill
4. Rosemary (this is last year's plant that I've - so far - successfully overwintered in the living room!)

I will probably also grow some type of mint and sage.

Flowers

1. Sunflowers (my mother-in-law gave me about half a pound of seeds last fall....I have plenty to share!!)
2. Nasturtium (Whirlybird Mix)
3. Daffodils (these are already in the ground and beginning to sprout)
4. Cleomi
5. Marigold (Inca II Hybrid Mix)

Lastly, I found a self-pollinating, dwarf blueberry bush that can be grown in a container called Sunshine Blue. My plan is to plant it in a large container and sink said container into the ground. That way, when my husband and I decide it's time to move, I can pull up the pot and go!

In other news, my landlord approved my request to put in an in-ground garden/more garden boxes! Hooray!!

What are you planting this year?