Summer Garden!

 After hours and hours of work and driving all over town to find the seedlings I wanted, I have my summer garden almost completely in.  I had to dig up all the beds, work some compost into our chunky clay soil, reset the watering system, and plant the seedlings.  Since I have four large beds and one small one, it took a good long while.  But it's almost done and it looks great!

Here's the diagram, and then I'll list the varieties with the photos below:

Top left, we have spinach (I forget the variety), peas (Progress No. 9), carrots (rainbow blend), two types of green beans (yard-long pole beans and blue lake bush beans), Beit Alpha Persian cucumber and spicy basil.  The spinach will be done soon, and then I plan to put a Juliet tomato there.

Top right is the tomato bed - last year it was top left, but I'm trying to rotate it among the two top beds, which get more sun that the two bottom ones due to neighboring trees.  Here are the heirloom varieties I'm trying this year: Evan's Purple Pear, Indigo Apple, Brad's Black Heart, Costoluto Genovese, Golden Jubilee, Porkchop, Heirloom Pineapple, Lush Queen, Sun Gold (not an heirloom), and Yellow Pear.  I've got three cherry varieties this year because they were such a big hit with the kids last year.  I couldn't find romas (!!!) for canning, so I've got 15 Healthkick and 9 Phoenix.

Bottom right, we still have a row of leeks from last summer, but they'll be coming out soon!  Then we have 18 red Better Belle II pepper plants.  In the center of this bed, a grey zucchini, one of my favorite varieties that you generally can't find at the grocery store or farmer's market.  I'll buy green and yellow ones from the market rather than growing them.  I planted two eggplants this year - should be just enough for eggplant parmesan, one of the few dishes I make with eggplant.  I picked the typical black beauty variety, plus one called Traviata.  If I find a rosa bianca variety, I may add another one, but I'm running out of space ...  Up in the corner, we have sweet basil, perfect for pesto.

In the middle, I have a small round bed with four poles that form a teepee.  I've planted the same yard-long pole beans at the base of each, with the plan to train the vines on strings that I'll tie horizontally to make "walls", leaving one side open for a door, so the kids can go hide in there.  At the moment, though, I've got lettuce growing in the middle and French breakfast radishes and two types of carrots growing around the edges.

And last, the lower left bed.  This one is a bit of a pain.  It has poor drainage, is in the lowest part of the garden, and gets the least afternoon sun, so it tends to stay damp, especially in the lower left corner of that bed.  The current tentative plan is to try growing some strawberries there (I know it's not an ideal location, but the kids picked them out, so I'm willing to give it a shot) and maybe some other less sun-friendly plants (heat-resistant lettuce?).  And on one side, I'd like to put in a sandbox for the kids.  Which will either be a lot of work, a lot of money, or both.  But it would have been SO helpful while I was busy doing all that digging and planting and watering.  I think it would still be useful as I keep caring for the garden with weeding, watering, and eventually harvesting, so I still hope to do it, and sooner rather than later (it's still more than 2 months until their birthday, so I don't know if it would be a birthday gift).  I may start trying to dig it out today!

Happy gardening!

Warm-weather plantings

Today I finally planted our warm-weather veggies. It's supposed to cool off a bit this week, but I'm not too worried at this point. I'm so excited to get my first glimpse of what my summer garden will look like.

Yesterday we drove out to Granite Bay for a wedding. I've had no luck in Davis finding 6-packs of the vegetables I want to plant - I guess most people don't garden at that kind of volume. So we stopped at this wonderful nursery in Granite Bay and found an amazing variety of heirloom tomatoes, peppers, and melons, as well as plenty of more standard varieties in 6-packs. I bought 24 roma tomatoes for sauce, and 5 heirlooms - Watermelon beefsteak, cherokee purple, black krim, black prince, and yellow brandywine. We also got 12 yellow bell pepper plants, 6 more green beans to replace the ones that don't look so good after the cold nights we had last week, one hot chili pepper for Loris, and two ambrosia melons. I bought 12 red pepper plants today, too.



Today was a big day, Loris helped me put the tomato stakes into the garden, and I planted all 30 tomato plants, plus all the peppers, melons, green beans, and two eggplants - black beauty and bianca rosa. I also finally got the watering system up and running without too much effort on my part. And what a hot day it was! But luckily, I've really done the majority of the work required to get the summer garden in. Now it's just a lot of maintenance - weeding, watering, and pruning the tomatoes. Until it's time for the garlic to come out, and then I can consider what to put there - another zucchini? Or a winter squash?

A few days ago I planted some more carrots and beets, even though I think it may be too warm for them now. I guess we'll see. I also put in some pickling cucumbers and Italian parsley. And in the backyard, I planted some yellow wax pole beans. I've never grown those before, and I have no idea how it'll work out. It's sort of an experiment.

And finally - we're starting to have peas! I've never grown peas or even eaten fresh peas as far as I know, so I'm a bit nervous and have no idea what I'm doing. I'm sure we won't have enough for them to be a main dish, but I'm excited that at least I'll learn for next year. Even though they're a bush variety and not vining plants, they're putting out little tendrils and trying to attach themselves to other nearby plants. I put one tomato cage on its side between two of the rows, and used a small trellis for the other ones. I tied some of the unruly plants up with string to keep them from clinging to the peppers.

The first spring plantings

Yesterday I went to the nursery to buy the first things I would plant for spring. I've actually already planted one zucchini plant and the green beans. It's supposed to be cold for the next few days, but start warming up by the middle of the week, so I want to start purchasing my plants in preparation for planting. I'm bringing them inside at night for the next few days, so the cold doesn't stunt their growth.

I bought an heirloom tomato - costoluto genovese. It's supposed to produce deep red, lobed fruit, although the picture looks like some of them might be tinged a bit orange. I also want to plant an orange variety, a dark red/purple variety, and then we'll see what else. I'm looking to put in 4-6 heirloom varieties. I'm considering putting in some Amish paste in place of some of the romas, as well.

I also bought the same two eggplants that I had luck with last year - black beauty and bianca rosa, one of each. I'll plant a couple more in a few weeks, when I pick more of the winter vegetables.

I'm attempting an experiment of sorts, and putting some climbing yellow wax beans in the backyard, against our back fence. I've grown some vegetables in the backyard with mixed success in the past, and green beans were one of the mild successes. This year our trees have been trimmed quite a bit, and the yard is even sunnier than it has been in the past (which isn't saying much), so I'm hoping they do well.

It's also time to put in the basil. I bought about half as much for the garden this year, since last year I was going crazy trying to use or freeze it all before I needed the space in the garden and had to pull out the plants. The frozen pesto has been a life-saver recently, when we've had less time to cook, but I still have huge bags of frozen, blanched basil leaves that I'm not sure we'll ever use. I'm putting one plant out in the backyard for when we realize that we need basil and don't have time to run to the garden.

And that's it! I've got a few other garden projects to do, like moving one of our stumps, pulling out the overgrown parsley plant, and hopefully fixing the watering system, but those shouldn't be too time-consuming. My biggest goal these days is to find six-packs of sauce tomatoes and bell peppers. Who knew it would be so hard?