Tomatoes

My Tomatoes are still kind of small but they seem happy enough. They are getting lots of sunlight and are growing slowly but steady.

I have two different kinds of tomatoes growing from seed.

Heirloom:

And Roma:

I also bought one other heirloom tomato plant called green zebra. I couldn't help myself, it looked so nice and I got excited it was so big and happy looking.

I bought it not only because I got excited but because I thought it might inspire my little tomato plants to grow big and strong. Its only been a week, but it might be working. Once they all get nice and strong I will plant them in the soil. Until then I will keep them watered and in the sunlight to grow nice and strong.

I am back

Sorry for the long Hiatus, I feel like I have been running from one place to another for the last month. I am, however, thankful for all the rain we have gotten because it did a great job watering my garden. I am not sure I would have had the chance to do it everyday, otherwise. I think things have settled down now, so I will be able to water my plants and post things for all of you to read.

Anyway you didn't come here to read about my life, you've come to read about my garden. To make up for the long hiatus my goal for the weekend is to make at least one post a day, starting today. Each day I will show you something new that has happened within the last month. Above is an updated view of my small backyard. (a different angle today)

Okay, apology over. Now it's time to talk about my lettuce!
This is currently what my lettuce patch looks like. Not very full, right. The only type of lettuce growing is some "green ice." Here are some of the little seedlings.

So because my seeds aren't doing so well in the ground I decided to start some above the ground. I figured this would be a good idea for a few reasons:

• Less weeds in pots, so I will actually know what is a lettuce seedling and a what isn't
• I think lettuce does okay in pots, as long as there aren't to many squished together
• and I can move them around to better locations if I notice they aren't doing so well

First I started with some reused plastic pots. Some I had from when I bought flowers and a few others I found in someone's recycling bin. I got excited because I knew that I could reuse them instead of recycling them. Remember "Reduce, REUSE, Recycle" that means first you buy less, then you reuse what you can, and lastly you recycle what either can't be reused. Well I guess lastly you would throw things in the trash. But I digress.

I decided to use two pots of each type of lettuce except the Romaine and the Buttercrunch, because I am not sure that the seeds are still good (they are kind of old). So that means I have 10 pots of lettuce, hopefully they will all come up.

Here are the pots after they have been filled, seeded, and watered.


And here they are in their new home. This is one of the corners of the medium plot, where the tomatoes and the hot peppers will live once they are big enough. Right now is kind of like a nursery. You can kind of see it in the very top photo.

Fruits of my Weekend Labor

I thought I would share with you all some of the things I accomplished this weekend.


I transplanted my tomato seedlings into bigger pots


I planted a new row of Spinach and Kale (you can see the first row on the left)


I dug up all the weeds in the front of my porch and planted some flowers.


I planted some flowers in pots and moved my younger garlic to larger pots. If you look close behind the lite green pot you can see an asparagus spear.


More flowers and garlic


My onions are finally starting to sprout. I guess they just needed an 80 degree day.


And My Raspberry bushes are doing really well.

I Also...
planted a 1/2 row of Beets and a 1/2 row of Radishes
trans-planted some of the mirco-greens and planted more seeds outside
planted bean and pea seeds
and I planted Potatoes
This was a busy weekend but totally worth it

Did anyone else get anything accomplished?

Getting some Sun

It was such as nice day out on Saturday that I took my seedlings out side for their first taste of real sunlight. Tega seemed to be enjoying the sun almost as much as the seedlings.

All framed

I have finally finished digging up and framing my gardens. Now I just nee them to be filled with delicious veggies.

Galic Update

Just a quick update. My garlic is enjoying the spring weather just as much as I am.

Here is the garlic I planted back in November. They look happy and healthy I am going to start digging them up in May.


Here is the garlic I planted a few weeks ago, just starting to poke up through the soil.

And I know these aren't garlic plants but they are my new Raspberry plants!

They are even budding.

I love Spring

This weekend was very productive.
I decided to buy some wood so that I could have "raised" beds. Mostly I just wanted to close off the growing area from my dog so now he won't walk all over my veggies. We enclosed one of the three areas that are going to be for gardening. Yes, I said 3, we have a rain barrel now so I had make a new plan, I also found out that its best to rotate tomatoes every year so that they aren't in the same place year after year. I think my new plan will work better and I am very excited about it.
Here is what my yard looks like right now:
You can see the wood we bought and my water barrels and of course the first of the three beds we will end up with.


Here's a close up of the new bed
I also planted my asparagus crowns and spinach and kale seeds in the new bed. Outside the bed in the basket you can see in the back ground I planted some Broccoli Raab (its in the top left corner, its kind of small)
I traded some of my extra asparagus crowns for some raspberry plants, I they are just kind of sticks right now so I can't really call them bushes. I planted them at the other end of the yard and I don't have any photos, sorry.
I still have a few more asparagus crowns that I can not fit in my garden so if anyone is close and would like some asparagus I would be happy to spread the wealth. It would be great if you had something to trade but not necessary.

Here is my updated plan if anyone is interested.