05/05/2011

 

Sorry it has been so long since my last post.  Since my last post all of my tulips have blossomed my favorite one being the one I put at the top of this entry.  This tulip in no way resembles your classic tulip and it's colors are absolutely beautiful.  I will be planting more of these this fall because I want my whole yard to fill up with them!  Here are some of my other tulips:

I love this color of orange.

Last year the only tulips I planted were the dark purple but this year I branched out a bit and I'm glad I did.  I'm enjoying the early spring color that I didn't have last year.

 

 I have three bushes of bleeding hearts by my front door and hopefully this year they will get the chance to grow.  Last year heavy winds blew them apart.  I'm just glad they came back this year after the hard times they had last year.

This is a picture of my back porch.  The two bushes are lilacs that I planted last year.  I also planted trumpet vines last year but they don't have any green on them.  I hope they made it through the winter, if not I will have to replace them.

The honeysuckle I put in last year is doing really well.  Last year it filled in the fence with a span of about three feet.  Hopefully this year it will be even better.  I can't wait until the whole fence is covered in honey suckle.'

Some of my Hostas have not come up yet, but this one is doing really well.  I hope the others have not died on me.

This week I finally bought more bird seed.  The birds were very happy with this, there feeder has been empty for about two weeks, when I filled it yesterday it was like the feeder was never empty.  

This week I also planted squash, and beans, and some marigolds were my tomatoes will be.  I have also been hardening off my seedlings but I have not planted any of them in the garden yet.  I hope they survive!

04/22/2011

I have been super busy lately so I haven't had much time to post anything.  I am leaving for a week so I wanted to just share a couple of photos of the garden.  These photos are about a week old, so my seedlings are a bit bigger now but I didn't have time to update the photos.  When I get back in about a week I will post new photos.  That will be at the beginning of May so my seedlings are getting close to being planted outside.  I have already started hardening them off so they are pretty tough and will hopefully survive the transition from pot to ground.

First a couple of pictures of my seedlings, all of them are doing really well so far!

Fairy tale eggplant

Jalapeno

Second try at Okra, these are much more healthy than the first ones I planted.

This week I also prepared all of my garden plots.  My plot with all of my salad greens and peas are planted and have started growing.  This morning I checked the peas and I can see them poking through a bit.  My North garden with my containers was weeded and I even dug up some grass in preparation for sunflowers.  

In this plot I have onions and garlic growing.  I have placed old milk cartons and soda bottles in the area where I am planting my beans so that the soil is nice and warm for the little seeds to germinate.  

Plants from the nursery......

I replaced my Rosemary which did not make it through the winter

Strawberries...you can see my pumpkin patch in the background.

I also made to hanging containers.  It has purple pansies and a Hosta in the middle.  Buying already made containers can be pretty pricey but making my own only cost me about $4 each.

My magnolia is in full bloom right now....If only it bloomed year around!

This year the focus will be on the backyard.  I need to landscape it so it looks nice but the plants have to be strong enough to survive my huge German Shepherd so this should be interesting!

I noticed today that my tulips are starting to bloom, hopefully when I get back everything will be in full bloom!

Asian Caprese

Sometimes when using ingredients from your garden you have to improvise. I had a big variety of tomato (Celebrity) but it only produced one tomato and it still is not ripe yet. The Celebrity tomatoes skin is also split due to a slight drought and then excess watering. Given all that I have abandoned my one Celebrity tomato. Today I wanted to make a salad but didn't have any lettuce or spinach ready in the garden. I did have plenty of.....


Thai Basil,

Yellow Pear Tomatoes,
and a block of Mozzarella cheese, I would have rather used the fresh mozzarella....but this works.
I de-stemmed the basil, cut the mozzarella into cubes, and sliced the tomatoes down the long ways to keep there artistic shape.

After plating the salad I sprinkled some rock salt over it, and poured some olive oil and balsimic vinegar. YUM!

Yesterday I also bought a pressure canner so that I could can my tomatoes and peppers. At first I was just going to make salsa but I decided that I really don't eat that much salsa and there are so many recipes that I want to try with my peppers and tomatoes so I decided to just can them so that I could use them as I see fit throughout the winter.

My compost pile is starting to get pretty big and hopefully I will have enough compost for my garden next year. I also plan on buying some chicken manure at the local nursery.

In a couple of weeks I am going to dig up yet another part of my yard and create my pumpkin patch for next year. It is going to be in the front yard so I am a bit worried about dogs and kids but pumpkins are tough so I'm not that worried. I also think the neighborhood kids would love to watch the pumpkins grow because I think they are by far the most fascinating fruit to watch develop!

Here is today's harvest. I have slowly been collecting the yellow pear tomatoes and I have a couple of Roma as well but not nearly as many as hoped for. Next year I am going to double the amount of Roma plants and hopefully have enough to make a couple of sauces and can them. My carrots are doing great though. I have been able to pull about five a week and leave the rest in the ground. I will probably pull the rest of my harvest withing the next couple of weeks. These carrots must be eaten raw because if I cook them at all I wouldn't be able to enjoy their intense flavor.


This is a green zebra striped tomato. This plant had a hard time and I am happy that I have the three tomatoes I have on this plant. They are supposed to get a bit bigger so hopefully the are able to ripen completely. I may pick them earlier and let them finish to ripe on my window sill. I planted this plant in a pot that turned out to be way to small for it. I just didn't realize how big it was going to get! Lesson learned for next year.

Besides the small yield from my tomato plants I have been very successful with my peppers! Each plant has multiple peppers on it and all of my varieties are doing very well.

Chocolate Beauty sweet pepper

Jalapeno

Mariachi pepper

I also have three Habanero plants, and a yellow sweet pepper plant that are all doing nicely but I haven't taken pictures of them yet. I have already tried a Mariachi pepper and it was delicious!

I also have about four pumpkins ripening on the vine. I'm happy to have that many considering the difficult time I had with pollination. Here is a picture of my biggest one thus far.....