A Visitor In the Garden

Last year, I wrote a post with an identical title, introducing you to my first ever vegetable garden.  Last year, it was a praying mantis that I spotted frolicking on the leaves of a green bean plant.  This year, I found a toad behind the jalapenos when I went out to water at dusk one evening.  He seemed to like the wet environment, because he showed up again the next evening too!  And I saw him on our driveway just a couple nights ago.  So I think we have a new pet!  ;)  Kidding.

Anyway, I thought it fitting to introduce you to this year's vegetable garden in the same manner as last year.  So here is Mr. Toad!

I caught one with his mouth open too!  And, of course, I rushed in to show Will my camera as Craig was tucking him in for bed.  Sophie was already asleep.

So the story of our garden begins in April this year, when Craig was planning the expansion of the second, small plot behind our garage.  Both plots are fairly small, but just enough for our needs considering we have the CSA and all.

The kids helped Craig pound in the stakes to frame the plot.

And then Craig framed it with railroad ties that he was able to get for free and dug up the grass inside the frame.

Meanwhile, we finally admitted that our landscaping was a horrific sight and desparately needed some attention now that it was spring.  So we got to work weeding around the front beds.

On Memorial Day weekend, I dropped the kids at my moms for a few hours while Craig and I drove all over the place gathering the seeds, plants, peat moss, herbs and top soil that we needed and hauled it all home.  I have no idea why I thought we'd have all that done AND planted everything by lunch time, but my aspirations were clearly far fetched.  It took until mid to late afternoon before I was done planting.  I'm a newbie to seed planting, except for green beans and cucumbers... and this year I decided to try carrots and radishes too.

So here is what our original plot looked like after planting.  Starting with closest to the camera, there are two rows of red and yellow bell peppers.  Then just beyond that (before that first wood piece) were radishes (seed planted) towards the front and two jalapeno plants at the back.  Between the two wood pieces are carrot seeds in front and a mounded row of cucumber seeds in back.  And then the furthest area contains two rows of green beans and the sad, little (dead?) stalk of rhubarb that someone gave me in a pot last year.  I never planted it in the ground though and it had no where to really grow.  It sat outside through the winter (still in the pot) and then Craig one day just decided to put that dead looking stalk in the garden.  :)  Can you see it?  It's that tiny stick of brown in the far corner and... it has a few, new, green leaves at the base!  :)

Peppers

A view from the other end.

The back plot is all tomatoes except for a couple green pepper plants.  Left to right, we have two cherry tomato plants, four roma (plum) tomato plants, one "early girl" (typical round tomato) and two green pepper plants.

The cherry tomato plants are what I'm most excited about.  I was pretty devastated last year that I didn't insist on leaving space for these when everyone was just giving me tomato plants.  So this year, they were my #1 must-have!

The plot on the back of the garage is directly below a down slope of the roof, so Craig put up new gutters and a down spout to avoid drowning the garden.  ;)

Will has helped minimally with tending the garden this year...  But Sophie LOVES to help me!  She always grabs the watering can and sprinkles a little on each plant while hose water them more completely.  ;)

She's very independent and wants to work the twist spout hose herself to fill up the can.

We also have two newish "baby trees" at the back of our yard, bordering the field, and Sophie often wants to water them.

A frontal view of plot #1 (the original plot) shortly after the seed plants started to sprout.

Green beans.

Close up of green beans.  I'm learning how each of the seed plants "look" when they start to sprout so as not to pluck them, thinking they're weeds.  ;)  Green beans sprout up looking like a bent knuckle and then unfold into two leaves that look like this.

Cucumber and melon seeds sprout two oval-looking leaves that look like this:

And radishes sprout two, little, heart-shaped leaves that look like this... with a red stem into the ground.

As for carrots... well, I can't tell you because I have no idea.  I never saw anything - not even a teeny, tiny, speck of green - come up.  They failed, sadly.  Not sure what went wrong, but in hindsight I wish I'd done more radishes instead, because those sprout and harvest so early and they're already eaten and gone!  I would have loved to have more radishes!

Following a wind/rain storm shortly after the garden was starting to grow, I came out to find my early girl tomato plant snapped at the stem and bent over in half.  :(  So I went out right away to replace it and ended up having to buy a small crate of six plants because they didn't sell just one at Anderson's.  I gave most of them away, but Craig asked me to please try putting two in the place where our last one was.  Not a good idea, as they need ~18" between them and this is definitely not 18"... but I won't be devastated if these plants are wimpy due to competing for nutrients because my most desired tomatoes are cherries and romas.  So I did as he requested.  We also staked several of the tomato plants to avoid any more snapping in the wind.

Oh!  And my herbs!  I did thyme, rosemary, parsley and basil this year.  I think next year I will do several basil plants, perhaps in a separate plot.  It's never as much as I would like with just one plant.  But the other herbs look fantastic!

An alternative way of watering the garden... :)

One of my biggest questions this year was:  "How will I know when root vegetables are ready to harvest?"  You can't see their progress underground and I'm no expert at "just knowing what to look for".  The best answer I got was:  "Just pull one and judge by that!"  :(  Well, the carrots obviously weren't even an issue.  And it turns out, the radishes are pretty easy to measure progress.  ;-)

When they got to be as big around as a radish "should be" in my mind... I pulled them!  Oh how exciting!!  This was in June!  They grow quickly!  And I already want more!  I didn't have a ton planted simply because I didn't know what I was doing.  Haha.

So, of course, I documented the harvesting of my first garden vegetable.  :)

Two of them the first day!

Aww... so cute!  I'm so proud.

And hey!  Remember my "dead" rhubarb plant?  It made a MAJOR comeback!!!

I think it's so cool to see how different plants emerge from the soil.  See that little nubbin' of a stalk right there in the middle?  It's really just the start of a leaf, all scrunched and packed tight for it poke up through the ground and then it grows taller and unfolds into a leaf and shoots up a stalk!  I'm totally geeky for this stuff.  I think it's so important to have an appreciation for how the foods we eat get to our plate and when you really look at how a tiny seed can use the soil and the sun and the rain and grow into FOOD - all intricate and unique - well... it's AMAZING!!  I just have an awe for nature.  :)

Plot #1

Plot #2

(We caged the tomatoes when they started to really grow fuller and taller.)

The kids and I were talking about the whole "knee high by the 4th of July" expression for field corn.  So Will and I went out to see how the field of corn to the north of our house measured up.  This was a week or two before the 4th.

This is pretty typical for me.  I get home from work, unload the kids and head out to weed and water the garden still in work clothes.  :)  If I don't do it immediately, it ends up being dusk or after before I get out there again.  So I typically have dirty hands and water-sprinkled clothes by the time I head in to start dinner and change.  Haha.  I try to remember to grab my gloves, but sometimes I just think "oh, it's just one or two weeds to pull" and it ends up being more and I just keep going.

A weekend evening.  The area where the beans are planted always seems to be the worst with weeds.  ??  Hmm.

Another pair of radishes!

Earrings, perhaps?

More growth.  We put up a metal climbing fence behind the cucumbers and they are doing beautifully!!  No signs of our first cucumber yet, but it won't be long.

Jalapenos on the left, red and yellow bell peppers on the right.

Jalapenos!!

The red and yellow peppers actually start out green and turn red/yellow later.

Beans (two varieties) + the rhubarb plant in the back left!  No actual beans yet.

The cucumber plants climb the fence with these little tendrils that float out and coil themselves around whatever they can reach.

And look at how much they've grown/climbed!

The tomatoes have really grown too.

This is the most recent picture.  The cherry tomatoes are the enormous, tall plants on the left.  Yeah!!

The rest of this plot:  romas in the middle, early girls a little taller on the right and then green peppers at the end.

Seriously, the smell of tomato plants (just the plants themselves) in summer time is so nice.

Check out the baby cherry tomatoes!

Romas

These green pepper plants are so odd looking to me.  The one on the left is tall and scraggly looking.  Just not what I remember from last year...

But they're producing despite their outward appearance.

I made some salsa in this new Tupperware chopper thing I bought using all the stuff in our most recent CSA, and I can't wait to do that more often when the garden is bountiful!