Today in the Garden

The permanent locations for the two bell pepper plants and the watermelon plant. My tomato plant has grown greatly over the last couple of weeks...and yes, that is Alayna's arm in the picture.

The Romaine Lettuce has formed heads. I harvested one the other day and it was delicious! I've been planting lettuce about every 2 to 3 weeks and I'm set for a continuous supply for the entire season.

Lots of little green tomatoes

Pea-sized tomatoes

I think this is zucchini, but if not its cucumber. I planted the two types of seeds next to each other and forgot which was which.

Better Late than Never

(clockwise from the top) My sage & oregano plants came back in full force this year; I bought two bell pepper plants and a watermelon plant the other day...hopefully, I'll be planting them in the next day or two...its on my garden "to do" list; I planted two types of lettuce this year... mint green romaine on top and lighter green salad bowl lettuce on bottom.

As you can see, I've enlarged my garden this year. This picture is probably only a third of it. The sugar snap peas are climbing the vine in the back. The stake (to the left) is marking the yellow summer squash I planted and the clusters in front (there are actually two, although the one on the left is much bigger) are zucchini and cucumbers.

My little corn plants. I planted five, so we'll see how it goes. I figured it would be fun to try to grow it and best case scenario is we get lots of fresh corn on the cob (yum!) and worse case scenario is we still get corn stalks to decorate our porch on halloween!

Sugar Snap Peas ~ They seemed to have appeared overnight!

I have two tomatoes growing... yay!

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We added a new member to our family this spring! Cade Thomas was born May 20, 2008. Suffice it to say, the garden took a bit of a back seat. I tried to compensate ahead of time by making sure my seeds were planted well before my due date, however the weather decided not to cooperate. I'm still a novice gardener and learning new things all the time. What I learned this year is that planting early only helps if the sun is shining. Out here in the Pacific Northwest, that seems to be our biggest obstacle. This year was especially difficult because while the rest of the country had record high temperatures, we had record lows. I even heard a local farmer comment on tv (he was being interviewed by the local news) that his wife had nicknamed the month of June "June-uary".

However, now that the garden finally seems to be taking off, I'm getting very excited about it. I tried some new vegetables this year: sugar snap peas, tomatoes, zucchini, corn and bell peppers. Actually, I thought I was trying bell peppers last year, but the plants that came up were not pepper plants. Not sure if there was a mix-up at the seed packaging factory or what.... we never did determine what on earth those plants were. I also just picked up a watermelon plant. Not sure if I'll actually be able to grow a watermelon, but thought it would be fun to try and Gavin is extremely excited about it! Back by popular demand (my family's, that is) are cucumbers (oh those were so good last year!), green beans, yellow summer squash and lots and lots of herbs!

Harvest!

Hello to all my gardening friends! Sorry its been so long since I've posted. I was gone for three weeks to visit my family in Michigan. I returned home to some hugely overgrown yellow squash and cucumbers and many, many green beans. Today I went out to pick some beans for dinner tonight and as I moved the leaves, I found this nice cucumber! I was very surprised....most of my cucumbers are pretty small and somewhat deformed (curved, like pickles or oddly shaped). Anyway, I love having veggies to go out and pick every few days.

~Progress~

I see squashes!!!

Look at those squash blossoms!

The tiniest cucumber you'll ever see.

I'm very excited to finally start seeing progress on my cucumbers, squash and beans. The vines on this bean plant are getting a little out of control though. I think I'll use more garden twine next year.

Mommy's Helper

Alayna was a big helper digging in the pea gravel as I pulled out my green onions and shallots. I think I may have pulled the shallots out a bit early. Oh well, I'm sure they'll still taste great and I'll know better for next year.

Cucumbers & Beans

I admit, I'm getting impatient waiting for my vegetables plants to produce. Today I just noticed these little vines coming off the main plant. Does this mean cucumbers are on their way? (hoping, hoping) My bean plants are getting full and a few of the vines have made their way to the top of my tepee....I'm slightly afraid they are going to attach themselves to my fence, so I keep redirecting the vines back to the pole. I have much more of an appreciation for the fairy tale, Jack and the Beanstalk!

What IS that?

Ok, my expert gardener friends, I need your help. When I walked out to my garden this morning, this is what I saw at the top of one of my shallot stalks. Is this "seed"? What do I do with it? Does this mean that the shallots need to be harvested? Thanks in advance for your help on this.

Ok, I admit it...... I'm a cilantro-neglecter. I've had it flower before, but this is ridiculous, I know. To be honest, I'm not sure why I chose to grow cilantro. I never use it. Now I'll just have to find uses for it.