Big carrots!

They might not look big to you, but they're giant compared to what's come out of my garden in previous summers.

My first cucumbers are starting to grow and my tomatoes are producing like crazy. Still no zucchini. Last week I picked up some winter rye seed and tossed it around in the bare spots in my garden. Some of it has already germinated and is a few inches tall. In early spring (like maybe late February/early March), I'll turn it under to provide new nutrients for the soil. I know that there are better cover crops (especially legumes) but winter rye is what the Colorado State ag extension recommends for our climate.

First tomatoes!

Actually, the very first tomato came out about two weeks ago. It was nearly ready to be picked when I noticed it had disappeared from the vine. I asked my youngest daughter first, "Callie, did you eat my tomato?" She looked at me like I was crazy, so I moved on. My husband responded similarly, so when I found my oldest daughter, I said, "Brynn, how did that tomato taste?" "It was great, Mom!" I knew it...isn't the first tomato supposed to be reserved for the person who composted, dug, planted, watered, hardened off, planted again, watered some more, staked, and sang to the plants? Where was SHE when all of that was going on? Typical, right? I know I did the same thing to my mom.

Payback came today when I brought in a whole colander full of tomatoes and a bunch of carrots, too. The girls chowed the carrots and tomatoes along with their veggie pizza tonight, but even Scott and I got to eat some of the goodies with our dinner, too.

It's time to harvest my broccoli -- I think it is as ready as it will ever be (one of the florets has turned into flowers). I need to pull out the plants since they are blocking the sun from my tiny tomatoes behind them. I'm planning to plant more carrots and I've already planted more lettuce, although it hasn't germinated yet. We've had so much lettuce in our CSA box that I've only picked a few heads from our garden. Most of it looked good until this week -- now it's nearly ready to go to seed. I think I'll just let it bolt and then compost it. Maybe I'll save the seeds first...

Here are some photos from the garden today.

Tomatoes

More tomatoes.

Carrots, parsnips, brussel sprouts, and more tomatoes.

Broccoli ready to come out. Don't you love the huge heads of broccoli we have here? Yes, they are like miniature broccoli. I felt inadequate until I saw that the same kind of broccoli comes in my CSA box. Maybe it's the altitude?

Overgrown lettuce patch.

Tomatoes about to be picked.

My littlest thief trying to get her hands on some grape tomatoes.

Orange is her favorite color, so it's only natural that she would adore carrots fresh from the dirt. My only regret is that I didn't plant MORE of them. She inhaled her carrots with her dinner tonight.

Mmmm...A perfect summer portrait. Hair wet from the hot tub, hands full of the freshest veggies. What more could a kid want?

Note to self

Self -

You know that ecinachea plant you put in the front row of the perennial garden to keep the deer out of the rest of the garden? Well, it's getting eaten by the deer (even though it's deer "resistant") and it's WAY too big to be in the front of the garden. In the fall, move it to the spot formerly occupied by the artemisia (the one Brynn killed with gasoline) and put a catmint in the ecinachea's spot. The deer don't touch that and it's lower growing. Also, move the second ecinachea back to the spot formerly occupied by the now dead (for no good reason) coreopsis and find something new to stick in its spot, too. Maybe a low-growing agastache.

Don't forget.

Lovingly,
Hillary

PS: Remember to look into getting a hedge trimmer to shear back the catmint and shape the boxwoods.

Spinach bolted.

Oops...I waited too long. I ended up harvesting (and composting a lot of) the spinach two days ago. Most of it had bolted. Some of it was still edible, but about a third of it went straight to the composter. Ugh! Next year I'm going to try planting Bloomsdale Spinach and see how it does. Whatever variety I planted this year was lame. Tiny leaves, took forever to germinate...not good.

I'm still waiting to see if I'm going to get any broccoli or brussel sprouts, too. The plants are huge, but there's nothing resembling brussel sprouts or broccoli attached to the leaves. Not sure how that's supposed to work since I've never grown them before. The carrots and parsnips seem to be growing well, as is the cilantro. The basil's kind of sorry, but I think it will get better in the next week or so. The tomatoes have lots of flowers and a few have actual green tomatoes -- a good sign, I think.

We got a bunch of lettuce and spinach in our CSA box this week, so we'll be having salads for dinner for the next few days. We've eaten about half of the lettuce out of our garden and it was great. Alice Waters talks about how wonderful lettuce is when it's still practically alive. She's right. Crispy and sweet...yum.

My first harvest

I was out of town over the weekend, and when I arrived home on Sunday afternoon, I went to the garden to take a peek. Much to my surprise, I found that at least half of my bok choy had bolted, meaning that it had gone to seed. This was despite the fact that each plant was less than a third of the size that I expected them to be. Seeing that it wasn't going to get any bigger, I planned to make stir fry out of most of it for dinner tonight. The stir fry was tasty, but what was most satisfying was seeing the gorgeous color of the bok choy in the colander as I rinsed it this afternoon.

Unfortunately, my strawberry plants aren't producing much of anything. Lots of flowers, no fruit. I was planning to put netting over the strawberries to keep the birds off, but there doesn't seem to be a need for it. The tomatoes are growing well and adding more flowers every day. My two bell pepper plants, on the other hand, don't seem to have added a centimeter to their height since Mother's Day when I put them in the ground. Since they're only about eight inches tall, I'm not expecting much from them this season. The carrots and parsnips seem to be growing well, as are the spinach, broccoli, and brussel sprouts. I can see little sprouts from the red onions, but I'm not sure if anything's growing under the soil. The green onions never germinated, nor did the edamame, so I've put in more spinach in those spots since that's what we eat most of the time anyway.

Here are some photos of what else is going on in the garden:

Most of Brynn's snap peas are tall enough to reach their support net.

The spinach hasn't grown much in the past few days. I'm nervous
that it might be getting too hot and it could bolt soon, too.
At least we love baby spinach!

The broccoli plants are growing like crazy, but nothing
resembling broccoli seems to be growing yet.

Here's a view of the whole sideyard from the gate nearest our driveway. The veggie garden is in the sections on the right. I love the creeping veronica that lines the edges. The blue flowers are spectacular mid-day.Too bad they're not edible, since they're the only thing really flourishing right now.

Closeup of the creeping veronica.

Brynn enjoying the purple flowers.

Cole crops are in!

That's not that cole crops are in, as in "cool," although they are that, too. My cole crops are in the ground! They might get snowed on between now and the official "last frost" on May 15th, but they should be able to handle a little chill. I planted about 72 individual plants (one seed flat worth of seedlings), about a third bok choy, a third broccoli, and a third brussel sprouts.

No more germinations in the tomato/pepper flat. I'm keeping the seed flat under 18 hours of grow lights a day and constant heat mat, but I've given up on seeing any new germinations. I think I'll try some pumpkin and melon seeds in a few of the non-germinated peat pellets. Hopefully I'll have better luck with those. It's interesting to me because all of my seeds came from the same source, but the germination rates have been totally inconsistent. Almost all of the cole crops, spinach, and basil germinated while only a few of the mixed lettuce and red onion seeds have germinated and none of the bunching onions. I'm not sure why some varieties of seeds germinated without a problem and some not at all. Anyone?

Uh-oh tomatoes

I planted my tomato seeds in the basement about two weeks ago, maybe a few days more than two weeks. I was a week late planting them, but figured with the propagation mat and grow lights they would catch up. So far, of the 25 or so seeds that I planted, only four have germinated. Oops. And they're tiny. And none of the pepper plants have germinated. Nor the asparagus. I will be very sad (not to mention discouraged) if I have to abandon my Mountain Princess and Green Zebra tomatoes, among others. If they don't get growing soon, I'll go buy some two foot tall plants from a nursery so that I can have tomatoes by August. But they won't be as good...they won't be old, hard to get varieties. Scott says my seedlings will be good for next summer. Hmm...I wonder if I can keep them growing in the basement for a whole year?

Germination has begun!

Tiny leaves of spinach, lettuce, and snap peas are all beginning to come up. In addition, Scott planted a few more strawberry plants to fill out the row and I put two rosemary plants in a tiny empty spot near the tomatoes. I think we lost a few of our old strawberry plants when I was savagely turning the soil this year. I worked the soil in early March, adding a bit of sand (to help break up and drain our heavy clay soil) along with some peat moss and dairy cow manure. The manure came from the farm where we keep our cow (yes, we have a cow share so that we can drink raw milk). Next time we go collect manure, we'll be sure to take stronger bags. Ours were wimpy, wimpy, wimpy and broke when we filled them more than a third full with the heavy, dense manure. Scott was having some issues at work that day, despite the fact that it was a Saturday, and so he ended up on the phone most of the time while I shoveled manure. Ahh, the delights of making his way up to management!

Here are some photos of what's going on in our garden today:

Lettuce. There are three seeds coming up there -- can you see them all? Tiny, I know.

The strawberry patch. Or, in this case, the strawberry row. Last year we had lots of half strawberries. Most of them had big bites out of them from birds. This year I'll cover them with netting when they begin to fruit. Or leave the dog in the sideyard. Or maybe both.

The rosemary I bought today at Whole Foods. I wish it could be grown as a perennial here, but it usually freezes and dies by October.

These are actually Brynn's snap peas that she planted back in late February or early March when we were just starting the process of amending the soil. They're finally starting to come up...although only two out of about ten seeds have germinated. I planted more so she won't be disappointed with a meager harvest. Although, we usually don't get a chance to harvest snap peas. The girls eat them all off the vines before I can get the peas inside!

As a bonus, here are two photos of my Rose Tree of China. It is one of my favorite plants in the sideyard. It's on the perennials/non-veggie side of the yard (although I'll probably be planting tomatoes around it a month from now). I bought it from Lowes as a bare root plant in the spring of 2006. I've not had good luck with bareroot trees or shrubs, but this one seems to be proving to be an exception. If it were outside the fence, I'm sure it would be pilfered by the deer. Inside the fence, safe and irrigated, it seems to be happy. Here's one photo of the shrub itself and one close up. The flowers should open up in the next few days, so I'll take a photo of it then so you can see it in all its glory. I'm glad it blooms early...it gives me confidence that summer will come, eventually!

Once in a lifetime?

I did something today that I hope not to ever do again. On a day when my kid had a two hour delayed start at school (because of the eight or so inches of snow we got yesterday and this morning), I planted parsnips outside in my garden. How many people plant veggie seeds outside on days when the school district has a snow delay? Is this normal? It doesn't really seem normal. Welcome to Colorado gardening. Not to mention the fact that I'm not sure I know anyone else who even eats parsnips. Somehow, parsnips have been a welcomed addition to my family's veggie assortment. For those who are not familiar with parsnips, they resemble carrots in size and shape, although they're a bit wider at the top. And they're white or off white. And they have a different flavor. They're great cut up and roasted with carrots, whole garlic cloves, brussel sprouts, olive oil and lots of salt and pepper. My kids avoid the sprouts but eat the rest.

So, after today's planting, here's what I've got in the ground:

Heirloom salad blend
White Lisbon bunching onion
Red burgundy onion
Certified organic monnopa spinach
Ruby lettuce
Hollow crown parsnip
Certified organic Amish snap pea
Strawberries (they're a perennial so I didn't have to re-plant them this year)

According to the seed packets, all but the Ruby lettuce could have gone in the ground a week and a half ago. A week and a half ago I was still concentrating on skiing, so I didn't have the yard ready for planting. Tomorrow I'm planning to get the carrot seeds in the ground and then I think I'm free until May 24th when I can put in the pumpkins, melon, fennel, cucumbers, and zucchini. It's going to be difficult for me not to start those earlier out of pure excitement about summer. But I think they're all supposed to go in after the last frost which is typically around May 15th...or so they say. I do remember camping in snow one Memorial Day. Hopefully not this year!

Prepping and planting

Yesterday and today were both beautiful, warm, cloudless days. In anticipation of the coming snow (supposed to be here tomorrow afternoon), I spent a few hours in the garden re-designing my drip system. For the past two years, I've been unhappy with the drip system. We use a true drip system, not micro-spray sprinklers, but I think the micro-sprays would be much easier. My sprinkler guy, though, says that micro-sprays waste water and are easily damaged by our mid-summer hail because they stick up so high above the ground and they're so skinny and fragile. So, I added several more driplines to my garden this week in hopes of covering all of the dry ground. If I knew how to do it, I probably would have installed micro-sprays; they just seem so much easier. There would be fewer lines to pull up every year when I dig in more compost, and I think they'd help seed germination, too. Once the veggies get started, the old drip system seemed to work fine. The problem was in keeping the top layer of soil moist in order to germinate the seeds. Hopefully the added drip lines will take care of that problem. After adding the new lines, I tested the system today and it seemed to do a good job. That's when I got to planting.

Yes, we're expecting snow tomorrow but, never the less, I planted quite a few seeds today. We now have green onions, salad greens, spinach, red onions, and snap peas in the ground. Brynn actually planted her own snap peas, carrots, and snow peas about a month ago, and a few of them actually germinated this week. She didn't seem very excited about the little green leaves popping above the ground -- I thought she'd be thrilled, but when I pointed them out, she just looked at them and then walked away. Distracted, I think.

I've also got some seeds started in the basement. Last year I started all of my indoor seeds in February but the basement was too cold and there wasn't enough light, so nothing got as big as I would have liked. This year I started them much later but I'm using seed propagation mats to keep them warm. It's supposed to double or triple the growth rate. I've also got some growth lights that I bought to install above the seedlings, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Hopefully this weekend. Better late than never, I suppose. In the basement we've got five varieties of tomatoes, two varieties of bell peppers, asparagus, basil, and our cole crops: broccoli, bok choy, and brussel sprouts. I still haven't figured out where I'm going to put our asparagus patch. It takes three years of growth before you can harvest any spears, so I need to put it somewhere out of the way, but away from the deer, too. Not easy to find a site like that in our yard.

I started more tomatoes and peppers than I'll need. I'm hoping they'll grow fast enough to be given away as teacher gifts at the end of the year.

Now, in case you're not bored enough by all of my talking, here are some labeled photos so you can see where everything will be planted. I'm counting on harvesting the cole crops early enough in the season to plant some mid-late summer crops in their place. If that doesn't work, I'll plant more cole crops for fall harvest.

My veggie journal

For the first time this February, I decided to keep a veggie journal. I was inspired by Barbara Kingsolver in her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It had never occurred to me before to keep track of how I amended the soil, what I planted, and when and where I planted it until she talked about her journal in her book. She can go back through the years and see the precise date when her asparagus came up every spring, or when she had to bring in all of her unripened tomatoes before the first big freeze. Genius. Okay, not genius, but common sense, I suppose. Since I'm just a novice gardener, I apparently didn't acquire the necessary amount of common sense until this year. I started my journal with a list of the seeds I bought (all heirloom, thank you very much) and a sketch of where I'd plant them all in my little garden. Today as I was sticking seeds into the soil, I realized that I should journal here in blog form instead of in a private pen-and-paper journal. I'm sure most of you know more about gardening than I do, so maybe you can leave comments to help me get the most out of my little chunk of land. Or, maybe something I'm doing will inspire you in your garden. Or inspire you to have a garden. Or inspire you to come over and eat from my garden!

So, here we go. Off and digging.