Well…. it’s been a while since my last blog post! I got really busy with work (tax office = crazy hectic from February to April 16), and then got busy with catching up on everything I didn’t have time to do during tax season. So, after recovering, I’m back and determined to post regularly again.

A few updates:

– In late April / early May, I planted our summer veggie garden. This year I decided to diversify a bit more rather than planting several of each vegetable, since last year I ended up with a TON of certain things (for example, tomatoes, eggplant, and squash). This summer’s veggie garden includes:

• Tomatoes: two grape, one early girl, one better boy, and two heirlooms that I received from a client at work (he grew a bunch from seed and ran out of room to plant the seedlings). I ended up not having room for 15 of the 17 seedlings he gave me, so I gave the majority away to my mom and my brother. I still have five left in pots waiting to get planted, so maybe I’ll pull out the grow bags from last year. A bonus of planting them super late is that my tomato season will be extended As long as the weather doesn’t do anything crazy – but that’s a benefit of living where we do – mild, pleasant weather pretty much year round! Rough, I know, but someone’s gotta live here! 😉
• Eggplant: two different varieties, both with a purplish skin that is white at the top. Pretty sure I grew both of these varieties last year (the names are slipping my mind at the moment), and they were both delicious and fun! I’m not growing any Japanese this year – although they did extremely well last year and the year before, I found that I was ending up with an overabundance of them and limited ways to prepare them because of their shape (long and slender).
• Bell peppers: three plants – I think I picked up an orange and two red, or maybe a yellow and two red?
• Other peppers: one jalapeno, one banana pepper, and one other pepper (again, the type is slipping my mind. Hey, it’s been a couple months, and they’re not producing yet!).
• Green beans: a pole variety six-pack from the nursery.
• Cucumbers: one Persian and one burpless slicer (called something like “burpless salad cucumber” on the tag). Actually though, there were two plants in each 4″ pot, so I guess I have two plants of each type.
• Squash: one zucchini and one crookneck (again, there were two plants in each pot, so I have two plants of each).
• Radishes: Easter Egg variety (they grow in a variety of bright colors, from pink to purple) – I had a lot of seeds leftover from last summer, so I just sowed a few here and there in some empty corners of one of my raised bed, and when I harvest a few, I just pop a few more seeds in their place.
• Kale: from seed. I’ve been eating a lot of kale lately (it’s a major component in my breakfast smoothies), so when I saw the seed packets in the local home improvement store / nursery, I figured I might as well sow some and see how it goes.
• Beets: from seed. I love marinated sliced beets, like you find in good salad bars, but I’ve read that you can actually cook them a variety of ways and that they’re delicious. So again, I figured, why not? For a few dollars, I picked up a seed packet that will probably last me a few years.
• Herbs from seed: cilantro and basil. I also planted thyme, parsley, and some lettuces from seed, all at the same time, using shoe wall pockets which I hung on the shed by the veggie garden. I’ll have to do a full post about that experiment, which did not turn out like I’d hoped. Turns out I was watering too little, so several of the tiny seedlings didn’t make it. At the same time, I was watering the flowers – which I’d also planted in the wall pockets – too much, so a lot of them rotted and died. I transplanted the surviving herbs into a big pot on the patio, and transplanted the surviving flowers into the Back 40 (most of which are doing well now). The herbs, though, are still very small seedlings, and I try to water them consistently so I have fresh herbs for the summertime for salsas, caprese, etc. If they don’t end up working out, I may pick up some 4″ herbs from Home Depot and just plop them in the ground so I at least have some herbs to snip leaves from. It seems a waste to buy a bundle from the store every time I need some, because it seems I never end up using the whole bunch. I prefer being able to snip a few leaves here and there, and have growing herbs in the garden when I want them, rather than having to go to the store every time.
• Asparagus: these are growing in the back section of our backyard, which I refer to as the “Back 40.” When reading about growing asparagus, I was surprised to learn that they live 15-20 years or so! However, they do require that you don’t harvest anything the first two years after they’re planted, so that they can spend all of their energy on establishing a strong root system. So, I planted them in the Back 40 among a bunch of tropical plants so that when they die down in the winter, they’ll be surrounded by beautiful plants and I won’t have a gaping hole or an eyesore to worry about. This is the first time I’ve grown asparagus. I purchased a bag of three crowns from Home Depot (kind of an impulse buy), learned about them, and planted them, being sure to follow the instructions of digging deep holes and adding a couple of inches of dirt every couple of weeks until they were completely covered. Two of the three came up – one so much later than the other, in fact, that I figured only one had survived. I think having two plants survive is pretty good. Like they say, “two outta three ain’t bad.”
• Potatoes: again, it’s my first time growing them. I purchased two bags of seed potatoes (ten seed potatoes per bag) from Home Depot at the same time that I purchased the asparagus crowns. I planted them in two rows (one for each type – some sort of red and some sort of white or yellow – I don’t recall the exact varieties at the moment) in the Back 40, using good soil and the hilling technique. I ended up purchasing some boards from Home Depot, which I had cut in-store to about 18″ wide and 10′ long, and used plastic-coated garden stakes to hold them up sort of like little retaining walls. Using this method, I’ve been able to hill on a hillside without the dirt going everywhere. Again, the potatoes were planted among my tropical Back 40 plants, so once they’re done, I can just pull them out, remove the extra dirt, and not have a huge eyesore. Some of the plants are dying off already, which means almost time to harvest! Some are still pretty green, but are flopped over a little, getting ready to start calling it quits. I was concerned at first when they started doing this, since I had read that potatoes are often ready to harvest in September. I thought maybe I was overwatering or underwatering – and it’s hard to tell with potato plants until you harvest the potatoes themselves – but if I recall correctly, the varieties I planted said they were early varieties – meaning, ready early – so I guess harvest in late June / early July makes sense. Hopefully! Fingers crossed.

Other items I had already growing in my veggie garden:

• Leeks: I got a bunch of leek starts from my sister last December. She had ordered them and ended up with too many once she had planted all that she could fit in her garden. They are still growing strong, but I did end up transplanting a few into grow bags when I planted the other veggies. Some are definitely ready to harvest – maybe I’ll do that this weekend. I have to do some research, though, as to how to prepare them (aside from the ol’ leek and potato soup – one can only eat so much soup in the summertime!).
• Red bulb onions: these are also from my sister. Same story – she had too many, so gave me a bunch. I tucked them in at the same time as the leeks, careful to space them according to the instructions she sent me. I’ve already harvested about a dozen, and they’re currently curing (to allow the skin to harden to ready them for storage). I still have a bunch in the raised beds that should be ready to harvest soon (a couple weeks after their green tops fall over).
• Bunching (spring) onions: these are leftovers from last year, when I planted them from what I now believe were starts. I didn’t know that I should’ve spaced them – I just plopped the contents of the 4″ pots into the soil without separating out the tiny starts. So now, they’re growing super close together and are hard to harvest. I end up just harvesting a bunch at once, cleaning them, and putting them in the fridge in a glass of water, and then make sure to use them within a few days. Maybe I’ll get around to thinning them out once they’re a little less full and vivacious (some are already starting to get some brown leaves). I already transplanted two big bunches of them to pots when I planted the summer veggies, and they are thriving! I didn’t thin them, though, so I figured they can just hang out and be ornamental, and help attract bees and other pollinators as they shoot up their flowers. So far, it’s working great. I’ve noticed more bees and butterflies coming around this year than last year, which is fantastic for pollination and also bad-bug control. Hopefully the ladybugs will soon follow, to help keep the aphid populations down.
• Swiss chard: again, leftover from last year. I figured they would die off once summer came to an end, like the other veggies I planted around the same time. When I was younger we grew Swiss chard, but I don’t remember it being an ever-bearing and ever-growing plant. But I guess in our area they are! They are going gangbusters! It seems like every time I turn around, they are huge and full and need some harvesting / “pruning” back to keep them from taking over a whole raised bed. I usually end up taking off a bunch of leaves, cooking up the best ones for dinner, and putting the others in the compost bin. I figure it’s not quite as wasteful that way.
• Sorrel: again, leftover from last year. These, too, are going gangbusters, and like the bunching onions, I transplanted some to a pot on our patio. As long as I remember to water it, it stays pretty happy. And it’s more convenient to harvest a few leaves as part of a dinner salad when I can just take a few steps over to the potted one (especially once dusk falls), instead of trekking all the way over the the raised beds (which currently don’t have lighting aside from solar path lights). Sorrel leaves have a lemony taste. I also found a recipe last year for sorrel pesto, which I’ve been interested in trying but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
• Red-veined sorrel: again, leftover from last year. I ended up moving these from their last-year’s location to a different raised bed where they would have more room, and spread them out a bit. They’re also great to add to salads for a pop of color and an interesting flavor.
• Mounding nasturtium: again, leftover from last year. I moved this to a pot next to the potted sorrel. Its leaves and flowers are edible and are fun additions to salads. They lend a slightly spicy taste.
• Calendula: again, leftover from last year. I saw little plants coming up in the raised bed where they were planted last year, so quickly transplanted them to a pot on the patio before they grew too large. (They tend to do that.) They’re edible flowers that can be added to salads, used as garnish, etc.
• Strawberries: I transplanted last year’s strawberry plants into hanging baskets and hung them on the pergola above our patio. I’ve gotten a few berries off of them, but they don’t seem as happy as they could be. I also have a strawberry plant that I’ve had for several years, sitting in a pot on the patio. It’s doing pretty well, and I’ve gotten a few berries off of it, too. (It’s much happier than it was sitting in a neglected area of our side yard, where it got the occasional water when I remembered to do so.)
• Carrots & parsnips: I planted seeds for both of these in a section of one of the raised beds last year, when I planted the summer veggies in the beginning of May, and they seem to keep reproducing. I haven’t planted any additional seeds, but I seem to be pulling many more carrots and parsnips than I originally planted. I still have seeds left from last year’s packets, so I think I’ll plant some for winter in a month or two.
• Spicy oregano: again, leftover from last year. I pruned it back when I planted some tomatoes in the same raised bed, and also transplanted a chunk of it to a pot on the patio for easy access. I’ve been snipping it back and drying the leaves, and already have about 3/4 of a big mason jar full of the dried herb. I’ve been using it wherever I can, and am excited to use it this winter in all those great winter soups, stews, and slow-cooker dishes like pot roast!

I think that’s it. (It? That’s a TON of stuff!) I’ll hopefully post some pictures soon so you can actually SEE what’s growing rather than just reading about it!