Garden Update - May 5, 2013

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It's May 5th and this is my first garden update for the whole year.  This year is going to be a rebuilding year and my garden will be smaller than previous years.  Moving to a new house and having to get a garden going on top of all my other projects has been a bit overwhelming.

I will try and give the reader's digest version on what I have been doing since January.  I said I wasn't going to start plants from seeds this year because of time.  Well, that went out the window and I started tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants from seed.  I decided to set my beds up in "L" configurations to conserve space.  I filled the six beds with a garden soil mix from a sand and gravel yard.  I didn't take time to amend the soil, I just went with their mix so I hope it works.  After filling the beds, I have been planting for the past three weeks.  I hope to post regular garden updates now that I am off and running.

Here is an overall picture of the new garden, you can see the three "L" shapes I created.  You can the layout of these same beds at my old house here.  I kind of like this new configuration, it saves space and I still have plenty of room to reach into beds.


Bed Number 1 - Nothing but tomatoes here.  I have a total of 12 tomatoes this year which is double the amount I planted last year.  I have the same combination of Better Boys, Best Boys, and Roma tomatoes. I have the bed all covered in plastic and caged up.  This should be a tomato forest in a few month months.


Bed Number 2 - Eight yellow squash plants in the background, and four zucchini in the foreground.  I plan to harvest these hard until the borers get them in a few months and then plant something else in July, corn maybe.


Bed Number 3 - This bed contains peppers, eggplants, and lettuce.  I have planted 4 jalapenos, 3 Hungarian wax peppers, 2 habanero peppers, 2 yellow bell peppers.  They haven't sprouted yet, but I have planted lettuce and romaine as well.  I still have two slots in the top right corner that need to be planted with something.  Ideas anyone?


Close up of tomato plant.  They have started to take off and the stems are getting thick.


Close up of squash plant, something eating the leaves.

Garden Harvests - June 4, 2012

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I have been waiting all Spring for this time of year, harvesting my peaches and cream sweet corn.  Overall I am a little disappointed in this first batch.  A combination of insufficient rain, with planting it too close, and letting the weeds get out of hand has really hurt my yields.  There are plenty of ears, but they are smaller in size.  A good sized ear is about 7 to 8 inches and I have some of those, but I have a lot of ears that are in the 4 to 5 inch range.  I harvested 30 during the week and will harvest the remaining next week.

I also harvested more yellow squash this week and I am freezing it for use throughout the year.  We are still in desperate need of rain and I pray that we get some in the next week.  God is good, I am blessed.

These are the best of the batch, 7 to 8 inch ears here.

Close up of a perfect peaches and cream ear.

 

Here are the rest of the ears, decent but small.

Here is a batch of squash ready to be processed for the freezer.

Garden Harvests - May 14, 2012

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The harvests have been nice and steady this week.  We received some much needed rain on Saturday and the garden is showing the benefits.  I am still harvesting squash and lettuce, but the first batch of corn is getting there and should be here within a few more weeks.

This will probably be the last of the spinach, about 4 oz here.

Huge batch of lettuce, harvested 1.5 lbs this week.

Nice clean squash

Another batch, this was enough to freeze my first 2 pound bag.

Garden Harvests - May 9, 2012

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This week's harvest consisted only of yellow crookneck squash.  I have two plants that are producing now with eight more that I planted a month ago.  My goal is to put away 30 pounds worth in my freezer and let my daughter sell the rest at her vegetable stand. 

This week also brought my first tomatoes and peppers.  The pepper is a habanero and I am pretty surprised that it is already setting fruit.  The tomatoes are small and green, but we should have tomatoes in a few more months.  We got a little rain this week, but we still need much more.     

A nice batch of squash.
These were the first from the plant so they are a little small. 


First tomatoes are on the plants.

First pepper of the season, a habanero.

 

Garden Harvests - April 30, 2012

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It has been almost a week since I have posted and I have a pretty good reason.  I have been working on a project I have code named "Hell Week".  The project is almost complete and I will be posting about it in a few days.  My body is so tired I don't know what I was thinking.

On a separate note, I harvested the first yellow squash of the season, a good batch of lettuce, and a small batch of spinach.  Everything is going pretty good in the garden but we seriously lack rain.  It is so dry right now because we haven't had a drop in three and a half weeks.  There is no rain forecasted anytime soon so looks like the water bill will be high this month.

First squash of the season

They are a little warty because I left them on the plant too long

 

Huge basket of lettuce.

This was chopped up and we will be eating salads all week.

A little spinach, about 5 oz.
This was made into a hot cheesy spinach dip.