Posts Tagged ‘bell peppers’
My Spring Break is Over
my grandson's cousin enjoys some baby carrots
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.
Mid-Season Evaluation
unripe tomatoes
The All Star Game this week has put me in a mood to evaluate how things are going in the garden. Like the Cubs, there are both good and bad things to report.
The photos below tell mostly of the good things going on. The first peppers, both bell and jalapeño, emerged from their flowers today. Zucchini and broccoli are producing well. Noah is seeing the beginnings of what are supposed to become 25-pound pumpkins. Turnips continue to be available to pull as needed. Tomatoes are green, growing and prolific.
broccoli
black raspberries
Actually there are very few problems to report. A couple of my zucchini plants are wilting. I suspect either the Squash bug or the Squash vine borer is the culprit. I’ve seen both in the garden. Although there are Japanese beetles in massive numbers, they are not as fond of my garden without green beans this year. They are preferring the grape plants.
wilted zucchini plant
very small pumpkin
zucchini
first jalapeño pepper
small bell pepper
In evaluating this blog itself, it seems that a more regular posting would be good. This week I got rather involved with photographing insects and neglected my posts. (Well, I also had some work to do.) I will have some things to say – and show – concerning creepy crawlies in a future post.
turnip
very small pear on a nearly-dead pear tree
And finally, inspired by Jesse’s “bug’s eye view” of his pumpkin plant, I’ve included below a similar view of Noah’s pumpkin plant that long ago escaped it’s boundaries. The photo shows the point of escape.
bug's-eye view of Noah's pumpkin plants
(Mostly) Progress
In spite of cold and threatened snow (some fell overnight but none remained this morning), the lettuce, radishes, and turnips have begun to appear. The spinach planted in the egg crates has sprouted but we’re still waiting for the spinach that was planted directly into the ground.
bibb lettuce
My grandson’s pumpkin seeds sprouted almost immediately after planting inside in two yogurt containers. I’ll let them grow a little more before planting them into the ground. They will be planted in the spinach area. With spinach growing quickly in cooler weather, I expect that it will all be picked before the pumpkin plants get very large or maybe even before they are planted outside. I like to have different plants sharing garden space like this. Ideally, this allows me to make effecient use of small spaces.
spinach!
Pumpkins will grow where spinach is now.
The tomato plants are looking very spindly. I put them outside one day that was pretty cold and windy. This may not have been a good thing to do to tropical plants. We’ll see if they survive. The bell pepper plants look great!
The Garden Space
Here’s where we’ll be sharing food with the rabbits. It’s three strips 24 feet long. The middle strip is four feet wide and the outer ones are 24 inches wide. The narrow strips are for tomatoes and peppers – bell and jalapenõs – and the wider one is for spinach, carrots, turnips, lettuce and broccoli. Another small plot will contain pumpkins and squash.