I finally did get all of my tomato plants put out. Finally as in like a week ago. Our weather here in Southwest Washington (zone 8b) has been so weird this year. I never could get the lettuce, carrots, kale, celery or radicchio, that I direct seeded in in early March, to grow. I've never had this problem before. I've always been able to grow these things just fine, but not this year. I did put in cabbage, broccoli and lettuce starter plants in and they are doing amazing. Note to self: start these things early next year and then set them out. I'm not beating myself up too badly. This is my learning year up here. I'm learning what will do good and what won't. I'm not chalking this up as a failure. I just learned that I need to revamp how I grow things here.
I have 32 tomatoes planted out. They are the following varieties:
*Isis Candy Cherry (my only cherry tomato and the only tomato starter plant that I bought this year and that's only because these have been on my "want to grow" list.
*Purple Russian (this was started by my friend, Jean)
*Bonny Best (another Jean tomato)
*Black Krim (again, a Jean tomato)
*Red Dumplin Winner Pink
*Julia Child
*Opalka
*Orange Jazz
*Prairie Fire
*Yamali Blue
*Cascade Lava
*Cream Sausage
*Dark Galaxy
*Thorburn's Terra Cotta
*Reisetomate
*Bull's Heart Red
*Pink Fang
*Jersey Giant
*Sart Roloise
There's several of these that I have multiples of.
I had Bob put 2 of our 6-foot tall, 10-foot long chain length fence panels up, side by side, and I'm using those as tomato trellises. I'll bag the bloom of the fruit that I want to save for seed. I'll prune these and I'll secure them to the fence with plastic garden clips.
I did some trading this winter. I wanted to diversify my fruit plants. I knew I would need to leave my Concord grape vines behind when we moved. Bob and I talked about that. I grow Pink Lemonade blueberry bushes, so I took some cuttings off of those and I traded for Concord grapes. I now have 5 viable grape vine starts. We're still trying to figure out where we want to put these. It's fine. We have plenty of time to do that. They will live in these containers until next year when we plant them out.
These are currants. I'm not sure which color. Not all of them made it.
More currants. Again, the color is a mystery.
These are Chester (Skunk) beans that I'm growing out for someone. They sent me a few seeds. I planted them. I will grow them out and send them back 60+ seeds and I keep the rest and have them for my own use after that. I'm doing that with 4 different bean varieties this year.
I'm only growing one pot of nasturtiums this year. Like I said, everything got started super late. These are red and salmon Alaska varieties.
Chinese Red Noodle beans. These will run up one side of the arch and I planted Scarlet Runner beans on the other side.
These are Tongues of Fire bush beans. They are a borlotto variety from Baker Creek Seeds.
Dragon Tongue bush beans. Seeds from Baker Creek.
Here is my box full of straw and potatoes. I have not fertilized this at all except for a bit of mushroom compost here and there.
They are already beginning to flower. Potatoes grow well up here for me. They love it!
These strawberries are freaking HUGE! They have a ton of berries. We just need some warm weather so that they can turn red.
See what I mean about those strawberries being huge?? That log is not a small one. If we wanted to move it, we'd need to use a winch and block it off to a tree. That's how big they are.
Here are a couple more grow bags full of potatoes. I need to find a cool dark place to store these suckers after we harvest them.
These beans were my experiment this year. I bought these seeds from Walmart and Dollar Tree. They came up fast, they've gone through downpours and they are crazy yellow. They need some nitrogen, even more than the mushroom compost that we put on there can give them.
More beans. These are Cannellini beans.
These beans are Senate Navy Soup beans.
The peas that I planted have far surpassed my expectations. I'm very pleased with how they are growing.
I will have a great crop. I plan on, at least, doubling these next year.
I put my tendril peas on either end. They put out some very pretty purple flowers.
I've already enjoyed several of these. These are garden snacking.
I put in 10 varieties this year. This is one of the varieties that I ordered from Nikitovka Seeds in Ukraine.
I think these are the Spring Blush variety.
I also have some dwarf peas (called Tom Thumb) in the big raised bed.
Back in March, I bought a 6-pack of cabbage and broccoli starter plants. Later on, after that, I bought the same size of 2 different types of lettuces. I put them all out in the big bed. Look at the size of those cabbages! They are magnificent! I've never grown cabbages that looked so healthy!
I can't wait until they start to head up! These will be next year's sauerkraut, for sure!
There were actually 7 cabbages in that tray, so I put 3 of them into pots. They are not doing as well, as you can plainly see.
The broccoli is producing like crazy! I think there's only 1 plant that I'm waiting on to start heading up.
I'm so pleased with how this broccoli is growing! I couldn't ask for better!
The leftover space, in that bed, is a hodge-podge of different plants. I seeded in some beets, dwarf peas and I planted out those starter plants of lettuce that I bought.
We put in 2 cubic feet of mushroom compost into that big bed. Can't you tell? I have no idea of what these mushroom are, so I'm not harvesting them. I do have 2 grow kits for oyster mushrooms that I will try at a later date.
These are a dwarf pea variety called Tom Thumb. They are starting to flower out and produce.
Our raspberry bed looks like a hot mess, but the other end of the big bed looks plentiful!
We can't keep the chipmunk out of the strawberries. He's a little squirt!
Our initial rhubarb plant has gotten over it's trauma of being uprooted and moved so many times and is now happy. We bought a second one at the farmers market. I'm going to see if I can grow some from seed over the winter, too. I'm also going to try some asparagus.
The pole beans, in the photo above, are starting to grow. We got 23 varieties planted out in that long bed. The other photo is Jerusalem artichokes. Those will be going into a permanent spot after this growing season. We didn't grab them in time to get them into the wading pool, but that is where they will grow from now on.
I still have a few roses. I really haven't been into roses since the manager at one of our previous RV parks turned out to be a bit psycho and sprayed my entire collection of rose bushes with Roundup.
This is where we put a pumpkin, a couple of winter squash and my pickling cucumbers.
In one corner, we have the sweet potato that decided to start growing on my counter and the piece of it that Bob broke off and rooted out. In bottom corner is an Iran squash. Then there is a Svitozar yellow zucchini and a Rampicante zucchino plant. I don't have any normal zucchini. I'm okay with that. It is not my favorite.
I didn't take you all into the greenhouse this time and there were lots of pots that I've posted about for years. I skipped those, as well.
Thanks for taking a walk around the garden with me. Hopefully, by the time I post a garden update in July, I'll have the peppers, tomatillos and eggplant out and growing.
