Before the Rain

Rain, rain, and more rain.  This past weekend, the weather turned cold and damp...not a great start to June.

Friday night, before the rain started I went out to do some weeding and harvested what I could.  I picked 8 strawberries, 1 pea, and 1 head of lettuce. I also picked some thyme and rosemary (to make flatbread - a great rainy day snack).

I just can't get enough of these cute, perfect strawberries!

and look...my first tomato (on my sunsugar plant).

Patience

Every gardener comes to learn patience.  They may not necessarily accept it, but they learn it.  In gardening, it helps when patience is rewarded!  

I went to Maine for the long weekend, and had crossed my fingers that the lupine would be out.  It is just so....neat, cool, beautiful, unique.  The season (if there is such a thing) was not quite at its peak, but there was a lot along the roadside and throughout the Maine countryside.  I couldn't get enough of it. 

Upon my return, the Junebearing strawberries that were just starting to ripen before I left were now bright red. I had seven ripe, delicious strawberries...and look forward to more (with patience of course!) 

5.29.12 harvest

Harvest Monday 5.21.12

It was a beautiful and busy weekend in the garden, but more on that later.  I harvested two heads of Boston lettuce yesterday, which made for a great dinner.  My Junebearing strawberries are still red, but I guess that makes sense since it is not quite June.  I can only hope that mine looks as good as these.

First Harvest of 2012

Spring temps are finally stabilizing around Boston, and even though we have had a lot of rain I can't help get excited for the warm temperatures ahead and another year of backyard gardening.

Like last year, I plan to head to Russell's after volunteering at the graduation for the college where I work this weekend to pick up veggie plants and flowers.  However, I still have to finalize my garden plan and figure out what to buy this year. I already ordered and received three grafted, heirloom tomato plants from Burpee.  The two San Marzano that I had last year produced incredibly well, so I went with them again. My third plant is a different variety than last year, a Red Brandywine.

I have made the decision not to grow tomatillos again, even though I loved the salsa they produced.  The two plants I had last year just took over and were hard to keep up with.  I was able to can a lot of the salsa and enjoyed it throughout the winter.  However, I have been told that tomatillo seeds are pretty hearty and can over-winter, so I am watching to see if any pop up in the beds.  There are few sprouting plants that I have not yet confirmed their identity, so I will need to do some research to find out what they are.

I bought a few pea seedlings at Home Depot in April on a whim because I had not yet sown my sugar snap pea seeds.  However, these plants are not doing very well.  They are only about a foot tall (about double the size), but at the same time, already producing flowers...and peas!  This was Wednesday night's  harvest...three peas...and cilantro (I love an 'excuse' to make salsa.)

My thyme plant over wintered very well, and much better than my rosemary, which I have declared dead.

Next up...strawberries!  My plants multiplied quite a bit and I am excited for even more strawberries this year.

 5/16/2012

Lettuce and Strawberries...on repeat.

Aside from Wednesday's crazy weather of severe thunderstorms and tornados, the weather has been sunny and mild. It has been great to spend so much time outdoors. This week's harvest continued to be all about lettuce and strawberries. I harvested a few more ounces of Salad Bowl and Boston lettuce, in addition to six perfect Junebearing strawberries, which are really living up to their name.

The Everbearing Strawberries look just like they did last year - not very appetizing. They are supposed to be more of a small, alpine berry (compared to the Junebearing variety), but I am not sure why they look so bad. I have not tried eating one yet - but maybe that will be the true test since it is the most important factor!

Other news...

The first pea flowers came out this week. They always remind me of birds...

I moved the largest of the mystery volunteer tomatoes to an open square near the rest of the tomatoes. I hope that it proves to be a successful transplant so I can find out what variety it is. I hope to move the remaining three from their current and crowded location, but need to get more soil to put them into containers.

My Golden Summer pepper plant is getting a little ahead of itself. At only 8" tall, I noticed that it had at least 4 peppers starting to grow. There is no way that it could support them, so I pinched off a few to encourage growth upwards!

Garden overview 6/4/11

Strawberry Season

English Lavender

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I spent the weekend up in Maine, seeing family and welcoming the start of summer with open arms. Although slightly cooler up north, it sounds like it was a great, hot weekend for most of New England.

I had a special treat of fresh Jersey strawberries that my parents brought up from southern NJ, which tasted heavenly paired with a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Then, as I returned home tonight to my garden I found that a few of my own Junebearing Strawberries had ripened.

Now, I know the rule that you are supposed to pinch back flowers on strawberry plants in their first year to help them establish for the future - but I am just too impatient to follow that rule. I let my three plants flower away. So, tonight I ate three great tasting strawberries of my own.

I swear that most of my plants doubled in size over the weekend. I love watching everything grow. In addition to the three strawberries, I harvested more Salad Bowl Lettuce (2.25 oz) and my first head of Boston Lettuce (4.75 oz).

5/30/11 harvest

Other growing news...
The volunteer tomatoes are taking over and will need to be moved soon:


My first tomatoes (Better Boy) are growing:


My second succession of Black-Seeded Blue Lake Pole Beans (planted only on 5/24) are about half the size of the first succession, planted more than two weeks earlier on 5/8. The warm weather really made a difference with germination:

Garden Chores

Today, May 1st, ended up being a beautiful day! Trees and flowers are blooming around the city, the grass is green, and daytime temps are finally starting to average above 50. I spent almost the entire day outdoors - visiting Harvard Square for "MayFair" and having a BBQ in my backyard, surrounded by my garden. Have I mentioned lately how much I love being out there?

Saturday was not as nice of a day, but I was able to continue accomplishing little garden tasks, as I wait until the day I can plant the rest of my veggies (target date May 14th). Here was my list of my garden tasks for the weekend:

• Move containers off the grass (to prevent too much damage to the grass)
• Plant my new mint plant in a container
• Hang my 'wind chime'
  
• Put netting around my strawberry plants to protect from birds/critters

(Left) 3 plants planted this year; (Right) container leftover from last year

Overall, the tasks accomplished were nothing too challenging, but they made a difference and kept me busy for a little while!

Garden overview (5/1/11)

I contemplated planting my next succession planting of carrots and lettuce, but decided to wait another week. My peas, about 4-5 inches high, are doing great. Germination is not 100% but two late bloomers just started to poke through the soil.

Sugar Snap Peas on 5/1; planted 4/3

Sprouting peas

Sugar Snap Peas are sprouting!

So far about 14/18 seeds planted have broken through the soil. Planted on 4/3, they took exactly two weeks to sprout.

On Sunday I planted the following:
Lettuce - Boston (plants)
Lettuce - Salad Bowl (plants)
Onion - Red (plants) - total experiment; I am not really sure what to do with them
Marigold - Crackerjack (seed) - seeds were free, but I worry that this variety will be too big
Carrot - Short n' Sweet (seed) - half of one square
Carrot - Little Finger (seed) - half of one square
Strawberry - June-bearing (plant) - I couldn't resist increasing my changes for strawberries this year

Earlier in the week I planted a thyme and rosemary bush. I already experienced the convenience of having the herbs outside my door. While grilling Sunday night I was able to add some fresh thyme to my basket of onions, potatoes and peppers. Yum!

Here are some updated box shots - now that there something growing in each one.

Box 1
(Currently growing: marigold, thyme, rosemary)

Box 2
(Currently growing: marigold, sugar snap pea, strawberry, lettuce, carrot)

Box 3
(Currently growing: marigold, lavender, red onion)

No Joke

It was not fun waking up to this garden scene.

Fortunately, I do not have much to be worried about, but I rescued the pansies just in case. I am still not sure if the strawberry & lavender plants survived the winter; hopefully this storm won't kill them. It is supposed to "warm up" this weekend, so I plan to get my peas in the ground.

Harvest Monday: First Tomatoes!

Gorgeous! As the sugar snap peas keep coming, I excitedly picked my first tomatoes of 2010! Three bright, orange Sungold tomatoes were ripe for picking on Sunday morning!

I also harvested a mix of all my lettuces, sugar snap peas, a forgotten garlic scape and three tiny strawberries.

Plot update (6/28/10)

Perfect Growing Weather?

After being away at a conference in Kansas City, MO for a week I visited the garden yesterday. I could not believe how much everything had grown! I think the great weather we have been having has kicked the plants into overdrive. Some of my veggie plants almost doubled in size (or so I want to believe). Unfortunately, it also meant that the weeds grew even faster! I spent a lot of time weeding my perimeter beds and in "the addition" - because, of course my SFG boxes were weedless!

My potato box is now complete and filled to the top with soil. I anticipate them starting to flower by the end of the month (when I will check for new potatoes). I appreciate the cautionary comments from Leslie of dreams and bones, " I have found that soil that is too fertile tends to yield lots of foliage but no spuds. So as you add dirt, make it dirt, not some extra enriched soil." This is a lesson that I may have to learn this year, sine I used a mixture of free compost and store-bought potting soil. The plants definitely grew fast (planted on 4/18; first sprouted on 5/7) - way faster than anticipated, which may not be a good sign! I still wonder if there are any spuds in there! Hopefully the mystery will soon be solved!

I love getting comments and tips! This is what blogging is all about-sharing and learning!

In other growing news, my two corn varieties are coming along nicely!

Brocade Sweet & Japanese Hulless Popcorn

Here is my first 2010 harvest comprised of lettuce (Salad Bowl & Mesclun Mix), Sugar Snap Peas, Basil...and something else that is so special it needs its own post (to follow shortly!)

In not so great news...my Everbearing Strawberry plants appear to be growing well and producing small berries, but critters have made any red berry inedible to humans. I placed some bird netting over the plants two weeks ago, but it is not stopping smaller pests. Also, two of my cucumber varieties, recently bought and transplanted, did not make it. With sadness, I pulled up my shriveled Diva & Burpless seedlings (varieties that served me well last year). However, I decided to try two new varieties: Sweet Success & Straight Eight!

One of Those Days

First off, let me say that if you are a returning visitor, you may notice a few slight changes to my blog layout. I was frustrated with how narrow the posts section was and as a result, spent way to much time trying to give the page a mini-makeover. I only made a few subtle changes, but hopefully they will make a positive difference!

Today was one of those days when everything seemed to go wrong. I hit snooze too many times. I spent too much time in the garden center - and ended up with a few items more than what I went in for (although this is typical). I got stuck in traffic on Storrow Drive, a road that is difficult enough to let a single police car through when needed, let alone two firetrucks and an ambulance. Showing my ignorance to current Red Sox news, I found out that they had to finish Saturday night's game today at 1:30 - just when I was trying to find a parking spot. It rained most of the day. Then it was sunny. Then it poured. Then the sun came out - you get the picture...

The good news however, is that despite the weather, I was able to get a lot accomplished. My primary goal was to plant my potatoes and assemble my potato box.

This is my potato box, modeled after the Seattle Times article. For Christmas, I asked my father to build one for me. He followed the instructions perfectly, and even pre-drilled and numbered the boards for me (as you can see above). Thanks Dad! The box's design is supposed to maximize your yield and also make it easy to both, mound and harvest. Potatoes are relatively easy to grow but unique in that as the plants grow, you continue to cover them with soil. People have used buckets, trash cans, bags, or directly sow them into the ground. You just need to watch out because if the growing potatoes are exposed to sunlight they will turn green. Once the foliage dies and turns brown, it's time to harvest! My harvesting plan is to wait until they are mature, but I am curious about the 'new potatoes' so I may have to pick one or two to see how they are.

I was very excited to finally get the box up. I placed it in a sunny spot in my "extension" area. I left two of the sides together, but may take some of the boards down to provide more light to the growing spuds. I have mentioned the potato box a few times. I planted 5 Bintje potatoes (totalling 9.5 oz). We will see how much these yield in a few months! Each of the potatoes had started sprouting in at least one 'eye.' I added in a little vermiculite to help keep the soil light and to help with water retention. Sinfonian is someone else who has tried the potato box method and has some good tips and photos!

Today I also planted two herbs (rosemary & thyme), 6 strawberry plants and 15 freesia bulbs - that I picked up today at the garden center! I already used some of the rosemary for dinner - with [store bought] red potatoes and homemade rosemary flatbread. Yum!!

I worked on finalizing my extension area design, but am waiting until it is actually finished for the big "reveal." I planted another variety of carrot (Danvers) next to the garlic. Until now, all my carrot varieties have been short, so I am excited to get full-size carrots!!

In planning my corn planting I read more about corn pollination. Based on the remaining space I have & the space corn needs (at least four rows are recommended), I will only be able to fit one of my two varieties. This means that I will have to choose which one to try - the popcorn or the sweet - OR - plant the other variety along the backside of my plot, which gets overrun by the wild roses & vines. Decisions, decisions! If I have to choose one variety, I am leaning toward the popping corn.

Tomorrow is Patriot's Day, a Massachusetts holiday to commemorate the anniversary of the start of the American Revolution at the battles of Lexington & Concord. It is also of course, Marathon Monday as the 114th Boston Marathon takes place!!

A Strawberry Surprise!

I made a spur of the moment purchase at Whole Foods a few months ago. It was an "ever-bearing" strawberry plant. I originally planted it in the perimeter 'flower' bed, but later had to dig it up when I made the passage way between my two spaces. It is doing pretty well in a pot, but I was doubting whether it will make it through the winter. However, upon my visit to the garden today I noticed a small white flower blooming!