Overwhelmed by Choices

I just decided to order my first seed catalog (from Johnny's Selected Seeds). Flipping through seed catalogs may commonly be a winter task, but I have never seen a seed catalog and felt the need to be inspired. And am I ever inspired...and overwhelmed! I now realize how hard it is going to be to limit myself! There are so many varieties that I would love to try! I am now really glad to have a few more square feet of dirt. However, I need to plan carefully so I can maximize my new space!! Let the fun begin...

Harvest Updates & Big News!

I had two great harvests this week...

8.19 Big cucumbers and lots of Sugar Snap Peas & Sweet 100 tomatoes!

8.16 First Jet Star tomatoes & Mandarin Hybrid pepper*
unfortunately, the pepper looked perfect, but had lots of worms inside-i was very sad!!

Other news...

My Sugar Snap Peas growing sky high!


Cabbage heads are forming!

The Big News....
My garden is growing in a different way!! The small, vacant and overgrown plot next to me is now mine! It was offered to me over the weekend! The FVG can not find someone to take the 'plot.' I gladly accepted it but am still trying to figure out what to do with the space. My initial thoughts...adding another SFG box or creating a shaded area with a chair/table. Here is what the space looks like now...I see lots of weeding in my future...again!!

More about the FVG

I just finished reading the Fenway Victory Garden's summer newsletter and thought I would post a little more information about the community garden I am so happy to be a part of!

The Fenway Victory Gardens represent the nation’s last remaining of the original victory gardens created nationwide during World War II. At that time, demands for food exports to the nation’s armed forces in Europe and the Pacific caused rationing and shortages for those back home in the States. In response, President Roosevelt called for Americans to grow more vegetables. The City of Boston established 49 areas (including the Boston Common and the Public Gardens!) as “victory gardens” for citizens to grow vegetables and herbs.

The FVG is located on 7 acres in the part of the Emerald Necklace Known as the Fens. There are approximately 425 members gardening 500 garden plots.

"It is as famous to gardeners as a certain neighboring park is to baseball fans–and just as historic."

Source: www.fenwayvictorygardens.com

Harvest Report & Garden Update

I harvested my first "Early Girl" tomatoes today...finally...along with Sugar Snap Peas, Sweet 100s and my first Diva cucumber!!!

The Mandarin Pepper is almost ready...it is turning orange; Jet Star tomatoes almost ready!

Here is an updated view of my garden plot! I still need more flowers, but the SFG boxes are doing well!

Nation-wide Tomato problems

Here is a very interesting NY Times article about the variety of gardening obstacles people have faced this year. The latest issue is late blight. The article also mentions how many more people have taken up gardening in one way or another...

"According to the National Gardening Association, 43 million households planned a backyard garden or put a stake in a share of a community garden in 2009, up from 36 million in 2008."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09barber.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=all

Quick Harvest = Quick Report

Paul McCartney played at Fenway Park tonight. I forgot this until I hit a surprising amount of traffic coming home tonight. Unfortunately, he had not started playing yet when I went to the garden tonight for a quick 15 minute trip. I was hoping that a few veggies would be ready so I could use them for dinner. I was right! I picked a few sugar snap peas, beans, Sweet 100s, some rosemary...and my first two cucumbers! I was not sure when to pick them, but since they were about 5-6 inches, I thought I would try them out. I also wanted to continue to encourage new growth, as I confirmed that my cucumber plants are still growing, even though they look horrible! The two cucumbers were Burpless and they were so yummy!! The rest of dinner included rosemary chicken & potatoes, beans, peas and mojitos!

First Big Harvest!

I'm back! Sorry, I have been away from my garden for almost two weeks as I was enjoying another vacation! I heard that we had some pretty bad weather in Boston with at least one bad storm! However, the garden appeared to be in good condition. The sugar snap peas have climbed up the trellis, tomatoes were turning red and there were a lot of green beans to pick! I am finally able to update my harvest report! Unfortunately, the cucumbers have taken a turn for the worse. They appear to still be growing cucumbers, but the leaves have almost all died. I am hoping that the cucs continue to grow.

The biggest consequence of being away for so long are the weeds - around the fence and in the flower perimeter beds. I was not able to tend to the weeds tonight, but it will be a big project for another day...and it is going to be a lot harder to keep up with them than I thought!

Here are some snapshots from tonight:

Cucumbers & Mandarin Hybrid Peppers

Tomatoes & Sugar Snap Pea flowers

Multipik Squash & Super Sweet 100s

A harvest of flowers and veggies!

A Great Sunday!

I just returned from the garden with RADISHES! Only three, but that is a start. And, actually one was cracked...but I have RADISHES! I wasn't sure when to pick them, but thought I would try a few! Check out what my garden has provided me with today:

Lettuce and radishes for a salad, mint for a mojito and for decoration, hydrangeas and a dahlia! Bon appetit!

I am so happy! I spent about four hours checking in on each square foot! I "weeded" the itsy-bitsy weeds trying to grow, and if needed, helped guide them up the trellis, or added compost to freshen up the soil. I also gave a few plants some food and sprayed neem oil to hopefully help with bug control. I also tried to tackle some of the weeds along the fence that were starting to encroach on my flower beds.

Here are updated pictures of how the boxes look!


Also, cucumbers and beans are growing!

While in Maine

I returned from my Maine vacation last week and was happy to check in on the garden. "Everyone" did fine while I was away for the most part (I had a friend keeing an eye on them). Weeds are now starting to grow around the fence perimeter so I will need to do some more weeding! I guess the good news is that the weeding among the SFG boxes continues to be very minimal! Here are a few more updates:

• the Sugar Snap Peas are growing like crazy; and along with the cucumbers, I am realizing that training them to climb the trellis is a little more time consuming than I thought.
• something is eating the leaves on a few plants, especially the pumpkin; I am going to have to get more proactive in bug defense!
  
• I have lots of tomatoes on all 4 plants, but none are turning red yet
• I harvested lettuce leaves off my Head Lettuce (good news since I was at first skeptical that it would survive after transplanting it from Home Depot)
  
• I have another Mandarin Pepper growing, however this one has small bumps all over it. I am assuming it is some sort of disease, but have yet to figure it out. Also, although this pepper plant has a lot of blossoms, many are falling off-stem and all. I am not sure if this is a natural process, or if something is affecting the plant. Thoughts? Here is a picture of the bumps I was talking about, and you can also see the two peppers side by side.
  

While I was vacationing in Maine, the local town was having an event, "Bloomin' Bucksport." The Bucksport Garden Club brought in a local author who recently published a book about creating a perennial flower garden so that you have continuous blooms from spring through fall. The book is The Ever-Blooming Flower Garden: A Blueprint for Continuous Color by Lee Schneller.
It was a great talk and she showed how her book was designed to really make the planning stage as easy as possible. Some of the plants she talked about were specific to the Maine coast (Zone 5), but I am sure her book covers all zones. Unfortunately, when I went to buy the book and have it signed, they were all sold out! So, I have to order mine online. Although the event's main attraction was Lee Schneller's talk, shops all over the town joined forces to give discounts to attendees. It was a great event, even with the dreary rain we had!

I am now off to the garden but will try to post another report later!

A Welcoming Addition

Just over one month ago I scavenged a Maine beach (shhh...) looking for rocks that I could use as garden markers. I thought it would be add some personality to the garden. I scanned Microsoft Word for the perfect font and searched high and low for non-toxic, waterproof/outdoor craft paint. Finally finding some at ACMoore and I hope that it will withstand all the rain we are having.



I was waiting for a sunny day to snap some photos, but got impatient! Here is a small sampling of how the markers look in the garden...




The past two days have been HORRIBLE!! It has been cold with torrential downpours and thunderstorms! I even think we had some hail early this morning!! Luckily my garden appears to be OK! However, I am off to Maine for a week of vacation. A friend will be taking care my garden while I am gone. Hopefully we will have the few days of sun they are predicting, but I also hope that my first veggies wait until I come back to fully ripen!! Think SUN everyone!!