Garlic

The garlic has been cured and yesterday I trimmed the roots and stems.  It's quite a nice harvest for this year.

Many of the bulbs fill my hand.

This one is strange.  It's a one clove bulb.

And then there was this one with little bulbs attached.

Harvest Monday - Mid July

Here's what's come out of my vegetable garden this past week.

Lettuce and cucumbers on the 14th.

Basil, peppers, cucumbers and the first green beans on the 18th.

Cucumbers, green beans, and tomatoes on the 20th.

Now I don't usually pick green tomatoes and I didn't pick these.  I had one tomato plant fall over.  It didn't have its own cage and I thought the cages on either side would be support enough but that wasn't what it wanted.  These 4 green tomatoes came off when I propped it back up and provided support.

The orange tomato wasn't supposed to be picked either, but when I felt it off it came into my hand.  I think it's a Juliette. Hard to know for sure because I planted the Juliette between two paste variety tomatoes and they are looking the same as the Juliette. I don't think it's fully ripe.  There are others that color that I didn't make the mistake of touching.

Joining Daphne for Harvest Monday.

It's June in the Vegetable Garden

The month of June brings snow peas, lettuce, and garlic scapes - all of which I have been harvesting.

Below are the snow peas, happily flowering and forming the pods for me to pick.

Monday was planting day for peppers.  Here are two Jimmy Nardello peppers that I got as a thank you gift from Susan at Squash Blossom Farm in MN for supporting her Kickstarter campaign.  I also planted a hill of butternut squash in the far corner which I hope to train away from the peppers into the pathways.  We'll see if that works.  Along the edge of the bed on three sides I planted bush beans. I hope they are all compatible.

As I worked in the garden the bluebird fledglings were madly bothering their parents.  This was the only photo I captured that was in focus.

The six tomato I planted earlier are doing well.  On the left I added one tomato plant, Federle which came from Susan, too plus two eggplants I grew from seed.  I hope I have better luck growing the latter this year.  The bugs like those plants.  You can see the lettuce in front is growing well.

This bed got 4 peppers, 2 each of Cubanelle and Hot peppers.  It

is sharing the bed with lettuce too.

Garlic - can you see the scapes?

Blueberries are loaded.

Another view of tomato bed.

Two more small beds of tomato on the south side of the garden, one pictured here.  Each contains three tomato plants with Juliette plants in the center of each.

Close up of the snow peas.

I also planted two pots of cucumbers to grow on the fence, one pot of yellow squash, and one hill of zucchini currently sharing a bed with lettuce.  There is also one small bed of there pepper plants.  Now I need to get a bale of straw to mulch the beds.  That worked well for me last year.

Harvest Monday - May 5th

Thursday of last week I was able to pick lettuce directly from the garden for the first time for our evening meal.  I harvested two types: butter crunch and green ice.  They made a delicious salad.

Tomatoes could be looking better.  After Mother's Day they will go into the garden.  I've been hardening them off and exposing them to natural sunlight.

How does your garden grow?

Harvest Monday with Daphne.

Gardening for Granny.

Into The Vegetable Garden

The time was over-ripe to get spring crops planted.  Weather has not been cooperative so here it is April 1st and I'm just planting for the first time in 2014!  Yikes!

Here's the before I started working photo.

Here's my after.

Seedlings of bok choy and Green Ice lettuce.

Seedlings of Butter Crunch lettuce, more bok choy, and mesclun seeds planted.

One large bed of snow peas.

I have two beds of garlic planted last fall.

In other news the frogs have been busy.  I can hear the peepers (tree frogs) as I type this.

The pond was very full from rain over the weekend.

Photo from Saturday.

The goldfish are loving the sun.

Frog eggs.

I tried to capture some of the tadpoles in there which were a surprise to me.  I don't know when it was warm enough for those eggs to be laid.

These daffodils will be the first to bloom since they get the best sun and warmth near the house.

View of the newest garden expansion.  More on that as it develops.

One final photo or two of crocuses.  They won't be there long.  The ground hog likes them.