Spring Garden Update

So here is a picture of the peas that I am waiting patiently to harvest. These are Dwarf Gray Sugar and according to the package take 65 days till maturity. Behind them, supposedly growing on the trellis are Snowbird and Sugar Snap 58 and 68 days respectively. Well, I planted ALL of these on March 28th. June 1st will be 58 days and those Snowbirds aren't doing too much right now. I think I have maybe 10 blooms?!? I used pea inoculant on them, watered when necessary and in my humble opinion gave them a darn good place to grow. The tomato plants I bought a few weeks ago were growing fabulously in the green house. So fabulously that they started to bloom and the roots were growing out of the cocoa pots. I couldn't wait any longer for the peas so I just interplanted them in between the trellis and the bamboo hoops. According to my Organic Gardening Companion Planting Guide peas like tomatoes so fingers crossed that everyone gets along till the end!
Last weekend all the remaining seeds went into the Victory Garden across the street - corn, edamame, and beans, along with some, actually A LOT of tomato plants - early girl, big boy, and sweet 100 and a few pepper plants for added measure. We still have a good amount of space left over so Tom and I were talking tonite about putting in carrots, radishes and lettuce. The Valmaine I ordered is vert heat tolerant so I figure, why not! We were also talking about parsnips but from everything I read they don't do well in really rich soil and with all the compost we put down that soil is RICH. I guess parsnips will go on the list for next year. I am heading over there tomorrow to check on everything to make sure the critters haven't gotten through the chicken wire and will get some 'before the show' types of pictures to share.

First Harvest of the Season

Not the best picture and surely not the best looking radishes but this is my first time growing them and the first I dug up this year. Obviously some should have been left in longer but how much longer? These are Easter Egg radishes and the package says 28-30 days - well that would have been about a week and a half ago. I mean really - for cool weather crops they are being awfully finicky about the weather!
And the aphids all over the rose bushes? Well I think I killed some green lacewings too. How sad. All the pictures I have seen I thought those suckers were like 2 inches long and then some. Apparently they are only 5/8 of n inch. Damn - I hope they don't take it personally and come back to fight the aphids and other pests floating around here. I guess I should always do a Google search on insects before plucking them off my flowers and vegetables.

Holy Aphids!

Doing my 'tour of duty' through the yard today I noticed a gajillion aphids all over the roses - already! Those little bugs can do so much damage on so many things. Ugh!!! So I Pepper Zapped them with a mix
1/2 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1 teaspoon of Tabasco
1/8 teaspoon liquid soap
All poured into a spray bottle and if all goes well - hasta la vista aphids!
The Victory Garden is coming along. The onions, potatoes and Delicata squash are all in and yesterday I planted the spaghetti squash. Of the 4 dozen plus onion sets I planted only two were 'inspected' by some critter and everything else is covered with chicken wire in the hopes that they can survive.
My radishes are coming along - though not as quickly as I had hoped. Same for the peas. I think within the next few days I can get the first harvest of radishes and hopefully I can do so without disturbing the carrots growing in the same bed. The peas are taking off but so far no buds or flowers which means no peas but they still have a few weeks left. If they don't come to harvest in the next two or three weeks I am just going to pull them out because I need the space for my tomatoes and zucchini.
I planted Kentucky Blue and Asparagus Beans over the last few days as well. I took a chance and planted the Edamame seeds too and am hoping I have better luck this year than next.
The back yard is looking great - after planting 3" pots of perennials last year I wasn't so sure things would work out. This year everything is growing like gang busters. The Columbine is CRAZY and about to bloom so I can't wait to get some pictures of them too.

Spring Garden Check In

So this is the full on view of my spring garden. The first bed with the row covers is my asparagus bed. Six of the ten plants already have spears growing. I wasn't so sure I planted them correctly but I guess when something wants to grow it just will.
And this here is where all my peas are growing. I also have spinach, lettuce, carrots and radishes in there and hope that they are growing!


I cannot really figure out how people have cool weather AND warm weather gardens. I wasn't thinking when I planted all of this in late March early April. I assumed everything would be done before I needed to plant my tomatoes, cukes, zukes, and beans. Not the case. I am overlapping by many weeks! I think I need to re-graph the layout and move everything around in order to make this work.
Tom and I did till the Victory Garden on Monday so that is all set and ready for seeds. I have my yukon gold and red cloud potatoes from Territorial Seeds ready and I just got the Mars onion sets yesterday so all of the above will be planted tomorrow. I also took the soil temp today and it register at 60 so technically the corn and bean seeds could go too but there is still a couple of weeks before the last frost around here - contrary to the record breaking 93 degree day we had on Tuesday!