I've been feeling frustrated. Our weather in southwest Washington state has been so weird this spring. Some of what I seeded out is growing excellent. Other things, not so much. I think that, from now on, I'll start lettuce seeds under the grow lights to give them a head start. Well, I will after we can keep our pesky chipmunk out of stuff.
Anyhow, let's go on a garden tour, shall we?
We'll be hauling in our final (we hope) yard of soil and finishing things off. I'm planning on growing Scarlet Runner Beans in one pot and Chinese Red Noodle Beans in the other pot. They can share the trellis. I think it will make a nice arch heading into the garden. I'm going to put my peppers into little square pots (3 gallon) and I'll line those up on the deck. I'm going to cover them with netting to keep that chipmunk out. We named the little rodent. We call him Squirt. He loves to vex the dogs and cats. I'm still trying to figure out where a good place to put up 2 fence panels so that I can plant my tomatoes on them. We bought T-posts to anchor them in. The panels are 6-foot panels, so they will work perfect. I'll use the plastic clips that I bought last year.
I have to give credit where credit is due. If it wasn't for Bob, I wouldn't have this garden at all. Today, he spread 5-1/2 cubit feet of mushroom compost over our newest raised bed. It's roughly 2.5' x 25'. He ran shrog netting down the middle. We plant on planting out using the square foot method. That will allow for 50 types of pole beans...if I have that many varieties. I plan on growing a lot of dried beans to preserve for long term food storage.
We'll have this bed planted out within the next day or two.
This is the view looking out where we plan on building our second greenhouse. There are concrete blocks with rebar sticking up, so it's perfect for a hoop house.
I think these are my most favorite violas to date. I love this color. I'll wind up planting these out into the trellis garden so that they can continue to grow.
This is my spearmint plant. This bulk soil that we are buying is not the most optimal, but I have to work with what's available. Thankfully, the bulk soil place has mushroom compost for $1 per bag.
These Night Sky petunias are my favorite. There are 3 varieties. I have the purple this year.
These were potatoes that I planted last year. I paid a ridiculous price for them because finding seed potatoes was like finding a needle in a haystack. I think I spent $10 for 1 pound of them. Anyhow, I got irate with Bob because he didn't want to harvest them. I feel guilty for that now because my potatoes multiplied.
Here is my potato bed. I planted around 15 pounds of seed potatoes in there and I'm growing them, for the most part, in straw.
All my peas in a row. The tendril peas are the largest and they are at either end. This is a shrog netting trellis. There are 10 different types of peas here. All of them are heirloom/OP varieties.
Next year, we'll have a permanent place for these Jerusalem artichokes. This will be their 3rd year in the pot. It's too late to plant them out now, so we'll have to do that this fall instead. I have chives right next to them. There's a few rose bushes in the back that need to go into the ground, too.
I made a judgement call and pulled all the kale out of this raised bed. It wasn't growing. It wasn't doing much of anything. I decided to use the space for something more productive. I bought a few types of Dollar Store seeds before they went up to the Buck & A Quarter store. There were 3 types of beans and they were all bush beans. I planted this bed out. I'm going to use those for green beans and I'm not saving seeds, so I don't care if they aren't separated. They all germinated and they are all growing.
I still may axe all this lettuce. I drastically thinned the bed, but it still seems to be struggling. I'll let it go a while longer before I send it to the compost bin.
My idea for growing potatoes is working well. We'll be getting another bale of straw to finish filling it up.
This is my biggest raised bed. I planted out cabbage and broccoli from starter plants that I bought. They are growing great!
My broccoli is starting to flower. I'm excited about this. I only ever grew broccoli, successfully, one other time.
The other end of the bed got planted out with lettuce plants that I purchased, a dwarf pea variety called Tom Thumb, beets, radishes here and there and I think I planted some rare types of carrot seeds that originated from India.
I bought 25 slips of Walla Walla sweet onions for the bargain basement price of $2.99. If I would have known that they grew this well, I'd have bought more. The only bad thing about Walla Walla onions is that they don't store all that well. They are better eaten fresh.
Here's my biggest raised bed looking back toward the chicken coop, cat corral and the pig pen.
We got our first ripe strawberries. I'm pretty jazzed about that. I didn't grow them before because it would take up too much room, in my containers and raised beds, to grow enough strawberries to be able to make anything with. When we moved up here, they were already established and growing. There's enough here to make whatever we want, strawberry-wise. Jam, syrup and a fresh strawberry pie or three. I'll have plenty.
I have soooo many strawberry plants.
I will be perfectly honest here in saying that we didn't get to eat these. I forget that I had set them on the log and that chipmunk, Squirt, got them. He's opportunistic. I'll have to keep that in mind.
Here's Bob in front of just one part of my strawberry bed.
We got some cuttings for figs. We're not sure if they all took after we dipped them into rooting hormone, but, for sure, one did. I already have one planted, so this is cool.
Bob broke off a sweet potato slip, so he dipped it into rooting hormone. This is his project. I'm not sure where he plans on planting it, but if he wants to grow a sweet potato, who am I to say no?
I think these are a couple of the more sad peppers who want to get out of the greenhouse.
Cucurbits are something that I've never started from seed before. I don't think I could ever buy starter plants for them again after this year. I didn't even have to put them under a light. I just put them into the greenhouse.
I think this is an Iran squash plant. This variety of squash is supposed to be able to be stored for very long term. Someone, who reviewed the seed on Baker Creek's website, said that they had one in their laundry room for 3 years and it was still good to eat. We'll see. It's growing excellent!
This is a Pineapple squash. This can be eaten young and it's like a summer squash. You can let it go and it will get a hard rind like a winter squash. I'm all about multi-purpose!
All the cucurbits are doing so well! I am very pleased with this experiment!
I'm also going to grow okra in the greenhouse this year. I have an orange variety, from Baker Creek, called Jing Orange. I planted 9 seeds and I think I have 8 plants. I also got my hands on some of Baker Creek's Okinawa Pink okra. Again, I planted 9 seeds and I'll be having myself some jazzy okra this year! If it grows well in the greenhouse, I'll be sure to measure out a narrow bed for them down the side of the new greenhouse. I really like okra. Bob, not so much.
Now ask me if I care.
I don't.
I'll eat ALL the okra!
This is the Jing Orange okra variety. It's really pretty. I've never attempted to grow okra before.
These tomatoes really want to be set free. Outside. They want to grow. They need more room than a simple Solo cup. They need to get into the grow bags and on the trellis.
I have several varieties. From Yamali Blue to Cascade Lava to Pink Fang to Opalka. I even have an obscure variety that Tomato Jim Wyant tells me will produce good sauce tomatoes. It's called Red Dumplin Winner Pink. Jim knows tomatoes. I'll take his word for it. I have 2 plants of the RDWP and they are my biggest, most robust plants. I'm pretty impressed with the seeds I got from Jim.
I'm keeping one of these and then the rest shall go onto their new home elsewhere. Two are a strain called Rainbow Belts. The one I'm keeping is a strain called Gusher. The one I'm keeping was a mother plant. I'm letting her go to flower. Her life cycle is coming to an end.
Here are some other tomato starts that I have. One I bought. It's my only cherry tomato variety this year. It's an heirloom variety called Isis Candy Cherry. The other 4 are starts that I got from a friend. There's 2 Black Krim, a Purple Russian and a Bonny Best. They are all heirlooms, too. I have 3 eggplant there, too. I bought the starter plants because Squirt (the chipmunk) decided that he wanted to dine on my baby eggplants. They never stood a chance.
When these starter plants came to us, they were really small. We've been feeding them micro-nutrients that we feed to the cannabis plant. I think they like it.
This squash is a variety that I searched high and low for before I found a lady, in Heirloom Tomato Addicts Anonymous, who had the seeds available. I'm a sucker for Native American varieties of heirloom vegetables.
Another view of how well my cucurbits are doing.
This pepper variety is Najarano. It's a sweet pepper variety.
These are my paprika peppers. They are thriving!
Another random pepper plant.
I seeded in a whole bunch of different types of basil. I'm going to have a lot of basil. I'm hoping my sister will take some of this basil off my hands.
The flood table is full. Those 2 Rainbow Belts will be headed toward their new home soon.
I have no idea what sort of plant this is. Not a clue. It's not one that I would have ever bought for myself. If anyone knows what this is, tell me in the comments.
These are honey berries. I was given 3 mature bushes. They are going CRAZY! Again, does anyone know what you can do with honey berries? Let me know in the comments.
I'm not sure what these remind me of. I don't know how they taste, either.
This is a black raspberry...or so I was told. I was told that the person bought it because it was supposed to be a golden raspberry, but it wasn't. It was black. I'll take any color of raspberry. I don't really care what color it is.
My Egyptian Walking Onions are starting to set their bulbils. I've got figure out which small wooden bed I want to dedicate to them.
I love these onions. They are one of those things that you plant once and never worry about planting again. Every couple of years, you'll want to refresh the bulbs by pulling them all out and replanting some baby ones. The older bulbs, my sister tells me, make fantastic boiler onions.
They can take abuse, as well. As a matter of fact, the less you fuss with these onions, the better they like it.
We bought some flowers a while back and they never got planted into what we intended for them. No matter. We put them down in the terrace garden...or Bob did. I saw a baby snake in there. I won't touch foot in there until next winter.
Where snakes are, I'm not.
The end.
So, I'm planning on putting dwarf corn in the pool (like last year), Cucumbers in the small metal bed, the other squash and vines in the cinder block bed and beans in the long bed with the shrog netting in the middle of it. I'll keep Kajari melons, okra, cucamelons and luffa gourds in the greenhouse.
Thanks for taking the tour with me.
