my grandson's cousin enjoys some baby carrots

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I made an obvious decision to forgo writing about and photographing my garden so far this year. It was a nice break that actually allowed me to enjoy getting my patch of green off and running without the encumbrances of camera and computer. Gardening is a messy business and I recall last year finding sudden inspiration while having muck up to my elbows. Dashing to the camera or computer in such a state required significant clean up which somewhat interrupted the flow of both the gardening AND the inspiration. This year when inspiration came I simply said, “Eh…” and returned to pulling weeds in the rain.

A friend on Facebook asked me “What do you have in your garden?” That’s my reason for returning to this.

I am experimenting with new varieties of mostly heirloom vegetables. This year I have purchased nearly all my seeds from Seed Savers Exchange, an organization dedicated to preserving and sharing the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage. With any luck this year’s garden will contain:

• Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans from SSE – This is a wonderful old standby that I grew in my first garden in 1973. It’s the only bean I’ve ever grown. For next year I have my eyes on some Rattlesnake Snap beans. I don’t think I can resist “dark green pods that are streaked with purple – very fine flavor.” I like the name too.

• Wisconsin Lakes Pepper from SSE – I’ve always grown California Wonder peppers but wanted an heirloom variety with seeds I can save for next year.

• Jalapeño Peppers from Burpee – just one plant in a bucket from last year’s left over seeds

• Summer Crookneck Squash from SSE – I love the nutty flavor.

• Burpee’s Fordhook Zuccini – I used some leftover seeds from last year.

• Sweet Dumpling Winter Squash – I got these seeds from my son who grew them in Brooklyn.

• Purple Top White Globe Turnip from SSE – I’ll plant a fall crop of these too.

• Scarlet Nantes Carrot from SSE – I’ve finally discovered that the secret to growing carrots is deeply-tilled ground.

• Cherry Roma Tomato from SSE – These are replacing my Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes from the last two years. We’ll see…

• Red Brandywine Tomato from SSE – These are replacing my Better Boy Hybrids from Burpee. Those were pretty good but I want to save my seeds for next year and I can’t do that with hybrids.

• Brandywine (Sudduth’s Strain) Tomato from SSE -another experiment in flavor and seed saving

• Calabrese Broccoli from SSE - I was looking for larger heads this year which I didn’t get from the DeCicco variety I grew last year.

• Giant Noble Spinach from American Seed - These are left-over seeds from last year. My twenty-month old grandson likes this!

• Lettuce a variety of nine lettuces including a Gourmet Blend from Burpee, Black-Seeded Simpson, Burpee Bibb, and Roman Emperor (romaine)

• Mary Washington and Jersey Giant Asparagus from crowns I purchased at Home Depot

Please feel free to leave comments, questions, useful information or idle chat below. Maybe you can tell me what’s in your garden. There is more to come. I promise.

And thanks for asking, Mark.

Since I planted a very crowded bed of bibb lettuce I knew it would require early thinning. That’s okay because the thinned lettuce is really delicious! I will probably pick a little each day until each plant has enough room. Again, this is part of my plan to plant a lot in a small space. I have done the same thing with radishes, turnips and especially the zucchini which was planted right in the middle of all of these. (Two zucchini plants can be seen just to the left of the pot of lettuce in the photo below.) As the zucchini grows I will harvest those plants closes to them first.