Garden Update

The garden finally dried up enough to work in so I spent the majority of the day Thursday with my hands in the dirt.  I planted several rows, but we still have some space to fill.  I told you earlier that this is the largest garden we've ever had and I'm a little concerned about all the weeding, watering, harvesting and canning in my future.  I hope I can keep up!

I wanted to start my own tomatoes and peppers by seed again this year, but we moved onto our Little Patch of Heaven in mid-February which is prime seed starting time for us and I just didn't have the time to get it done.  I ended up picking up several seedlings at local nurseries.  Here's what I started out with.

Sage and basil were destined for two matching pots on the front porch.  The sage went in smoothly, but the 2nd pot was loaded with ants so it got dumped and now I need more potting mix to fill it up again.

We now have 22 tomato plants (a mix of Mountain Delight, Sweet Million and Roma), 9 pepper plants (sweet green bell and jalapeno), 8 cabbage (Stonehead) and 4 broccoli (Packman). 

I planted broccoli and cauliflower in my fall garden 2 years ago and they had big, beautiful heads on them.  I was so pleased with how they turned out...until I started noticing the worms.  Apparently, cabbage moths had used my lovely plants as a breeding ground (see an image of the worms here).  This year I'm trying a few broccoli and cabbage with a row cover in my summer garden and if it works well, I'll plant several more broccoli and cauliflower this fall.

I also planted a row of Jacob's Cattle beans.  They are a dried bean that is good for baking.  I've planted them before and stored them as a dried bean, but this year I'd like to can them with some tomato for easier use when I want to whip up some baked beans.  I'll be sure and post an update on how that goes.  Aren't they pretty?

At the end of the garden I planted zucchini, cucumber and Baby Pam pumpkins.  Is any garden complete without at least ONE hill of zucchini?!  Hubby doesn't like me taking up garden space with inedibles, but Baby Pams are great pie pumpkins.  At the very edge of the garden I planted a row of sunflowers. 

I still have enough space for 5 or 6 more rows.  My brother has some extra seed corn I think he's going to give us so we'll have several rows of corn and Hubby really wants to try sweet potatoes this year.  The nursery we stopped by said they would have sweet potato slips this weekend so we'll stop back by. 

And, of course, Ms Josie was with me the whole way.  She just couldn't figure out what those little things were I was dropping and covering up.  I think she sniffed every seed that hit the ground.  She cozied up to a pepper plant to rest while waiting on me to finish up.