Garden Update, End of April 2023

 The garden is coming along slowly this year. After the mattress fiasco, I still am not back up to par with my breathing. I don't know what's up and I don't have a doctor's appointment regarding it until next month.
Anyhow, I'm an impatient person and I am probably putting too many expectations on how things should be coming along.
This is what we have going on so far.

Bob got both greenhouses secured to the ground using rebar.

Technically, these greenhouses are longer than our fifth wheel is.

The rebar and clamps cost around $60.

One down and one to go. The covers actually go on fairly easily. Bob was able to do it all on his own.

I always buy a few lettuce plants to plant so that I can get a jump on being able to enjoy some homegrown salads, etc. I planted this out around 2 weeks ago.

I planted some onion sets so that I have green onions to use. They will be ready to harvest not too long from now. I have another 100 to plant. I wanted to stagger them.

My peas are starting to sprout. I'm most excited about the Roveja Soup variety. It's an Italian heirloom variety that comes from the Umbria region. I've never had a soup pea. I've never heard of soup peas until this year. I figured that I would give them a whirl.

We lost the bottom out of another raised bed. This bed has our shallots in it and I planted a few Egyptian Walking Onion bulbils in there last year when I pulled all of mine out.
Bob will have to take the legs off and set it on the ground like he did the other one.

The potatoes sprouted and they got covered with straw. We'll continue to do that as they pop up.

This is marjoram. It wintered over. I need to do a bit of pruning on it.

This is my lavender that I've had for the past decade or so. I plan on putting it in the ground somewhere.

Rosemary sure has some uniquely beautiful flowers.

This is one of the mint plants that my old neighbor gave me to plant.

The strawberry patch is sure looking scraggly.

I need to have Bob move my pot of chives up closer to the fifth wheel.

This is one of the honeyberry bushes that my old neighbor gave me.

This is a wild mullein plant that grows on the opposite side of the driveway.

This is the spearmint that I planted last year. I took a zoom photo of the moss world that lives with it in it's container.

We're going to put a layer of recycled cannabis grow soil over the leaves in the beds. That will amend them from that junk soil we got stuck with last year. I have 2 more of these cucumber trellises to go in there, too. I am thinking that I need to make some dill pickles this year.

I've had the big raised bed planted out for a month or more now. I have broccoli, red cabbage, brussels sprouts and a whole lot of onions planted in there. I'll add in some bush peas and lettuce in the next few days.

My sole rose bush is starting to leaf out. I want to bring this up closer to the trailer so that it can be a bit more protected from the deer.

My friend, Rose, gave me this plant. I think it's pretty. I still need to figure out where to put it.

The Red Muzik garlic is doing very well.
I have 2 planter boxes of it.

The gooseberries and currants made it through the winter.

We have rhubarb growing and thriving. I'm thinking about putting more asparagus crowns behind the potato bed.

This is one of the snapdragons that I started from seed last year. It wintered over and is still growing.


Thanks for taking the garden tour with me. Hopefully, next week, I'll be announcing that we finally have gotten our baby chicks. Keep your fingers crossed.

Mid-September Garden Harvest

 It's that time again. It's been a minute since I posted a garden update. We are actively harvesting now. I've put up several jars of pickled items. I've made a lot of stuff with blackberries. We're picking our tomatoes when they've reached a blush stage. Ideally, I'd leave them on the vine to fully ripen, but we are running a month behind this year, so when they blush, they get pulled unless there is higher temperatures in the forecast and no chance of sprinkles.

The above photo is one of my Reisetomate tomatoes. They are an oddity, for sure. From what I've read, they aren't the greatest tasting things, but they are sure a conversation piece.

Don't mind my volunteer tomato. We still don't know how that happened, but we're going to roll with it and see what it does.

We got a small rain prediction for today, so we thought it best to pull all the tomatoes that were beginning to blush. I'll ripen them up inside instead.

We just need a few more weeks of warm weather and I'll get a harvest. It won't be enough to sustain us through the winter, but, at least, have an idea of how many I'll need for next year.

Growing my own, from seed, was easier than I thought it would be and it's opened a huge door as to the varieties that I can grow. I'm approaching the 200 varieties mark in my personal seed stash for next year.

The Sart Roloise tomatoes are stunning. Absolutely stunning.

This volunteer ....er tomato just cracks me up. It's starting to flower.

Bob's getting some weeds cleaned out by one of our strawberry patches.

We decided to see if we could find any potatoes. We didn't. We'll have to wait for a bit and dig down into the soil at the bottom and see if my method worked or not.

We only tried in one corner, to be honest. Who knows about the rest of this contraption.

These are cannellini beans that I'm growing out for someone else. How it works is that they send me a small number of seeds. I grow them out. I send them back between 60-100 seeds and the rest are mine to grow out from then on. I like doing that.

More cannellini beans. These are one of my favorites. I always have a can in my pantry and after next year, I'll be able to have a supply of them dried.

Here is the Sart Roloise I picked today. This is just a stunning looking tomato.

Tomatillos, tomatoes, and some Dragon Tongue beans so far.

I was able to find some cannellini beans that were dried out. Bob harvested some rhubarb and I picked the okra, cucamelons and the Tanya's Pink Pod beans.

That Jing Orange okra is pretty to look at. It tastes really good, too. I haven't cooked it. I just eat it raw.

A view of today's harvest.

More of the harvest.

Bob went down to the bean bed and harvested any that were dried. This is my collection so far. These are for our own personal use. I grew some stunning looking varieties this year, for sure!

My Black Beauty zucchini plant is starting to really produce. I'm going to be turning zucchini into crushed pineapple in a later blog post.

These are my Jealous Neighbor F1 cucumbers. You can see that we overlooked one and it got a bit big. These are a hybrid variety that I ordered from a company in Ukraine, so I won't be able to save seeds from them unfortunately.

Rose says THANK YOU for reading!