June 24th Update

Basil, Oregano, and Rosemary - I am harvesting the basil and making basil ice cubes.  Each cube has one teaspoon of fresh basil.  I will add this to my pasta sauce towards the end of cooking...yummy.

Basil Cubes - Picture is not real clear but you get the idea.

Pole beans - June 24th - my husband was making me a trellis like the one for my peas and cucumbers but he didn't get it finished in time.  I grabbed a tomato cage, opened it up and then added some twine.  This will not be tall enough.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do??
I hope I get more beans than I am peas.  I have four squares of beans planted so I'm thinking we will be good.
(8 plants/square => 32 plants)

Finally - I have cilantro.  Better late than never :)  I need to till the soil around the plant...I was afraid to touch anything until I could get it to come up.  I tried unsuccessfully several times.

Compost Tea - I have dozens of good and bad things about it...I've heard many ways of making it.  I just threw some compost in a five-gallon bucket, I'm letting it sit for 24-hours then I'm going to water my tomatoes and peppers with some tea and then follow up with water.  If my plants die then I guess it wasn't a good idea.

My Fresno Pepper plant is looking awesome!

I was already needing one more tomato cage then I took another one out for my beans so I had to figure out what to do.  I found an amazing link on YouTube called Sucker and String Tomatoes.  I only had some tall bamboo to use.  This is only going to last for so long.  My husband is going to have to help me move it over to something a little taller and more substantial but it's working right now.  I tied twine on the bottom and across the top, then tied twine from the top to the bottom.  I'm pinching these three plants to a single vine and then twisting around the twine.
The rest of my tomatoes I'm pinching suckers but not worrying as much about how many vines there are as I am these three.  I want to compare the difference in the tomatoes.
The theory is if I have e plants in a 9-foot area and let the plants grow without pruning, I would get X amount of tomatoes each and the would start ripening on X date and the last crop usually has to be picked and ripened indoors.
If I string my plants, I would have 9 plants instead of 3.  My 9 plants would produce less than the 3 plants but 9 times Y will be more than all of X.  So I actually end up with more tomatoes for my 9-square-foot area.  Yes, I had 9 plants compared to 3, but I'm trying to get the highest yield in a small area.
I also should get ripened tomatoes faster and not have to bring so many tomatoes indoors at the end of the season.
 If I end up liking this approach, then I will have my husband build something for all of my plants for next year.

Here's a closer view of the twine which I wrap around the tomato plant...Actually you wrap the plant around the twine.

Look at my tomatoes!  My other plants which are growing in the cage do not have tomatoes like these yet.  They are just starting to emerge.  So far I'm impressed with this method.  I will keep you posted.

GardenBox 3 - Everything is getting so big -

9 tomato plants - 1 cilantro - 1  basil - 1 oregano - 1 rosemary

GardenBox 2 - 2 potatoes  - 1 eggplant - 16 cucumber - 16 peas - 16 green onions - 9 pepper plants.

GardenBox 1 was my cold weather garden - I still have some carrots, radish, onions, and beans are starting to grow (32 plants)

 My mom bought me this pot and I didn't know what to put in them.  I just got to Maui Pepper Plants.  Since my garden is full and this pot is empty, I planted the peppers in this pot.  These peppers start off a bright purple then change to red.  I'm excited to watch these grow.

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First Peppers - June 19th

Here are my first peppers!  I picked a Hungarian Hot Wax Pepper and an Anaheim Pepper.  I originally planned on canning my peppers but I think I'm just going to eat them with my husband as soon as they are ready :)
Well - you can see my usual pea yield...ugh.
This is the last of my lettuce.  There's a little bit left in the garden but not enough to do anything with.  I'm sad that the lettuce and spinach season is over :(

Peas - June 12th-24th

My first harvest - I'm not sure if the harvest increases through the season or if this is it.  I have two squares planted which equates to 16 plants

Blanching for 90 Seconds

Icing for 90 seconds

Drying before freezing.
Well after freezing these and then using in a stir fry a week later, I discovered that a lot of the pods were stringy.  I decided to find my seed packet to ensure the type of peas I planted.  They are Frosty peas not snow peas!!  LOL  these are shelling peas.  Oops.

Every other day I've been picking, shelling, blanching, icing, the freezing this amount of peas.  It's going to take until the end of the season for my family to have one meal.  Everything I research says I should have plenty.  We will see.

Here's how many peas I have now - June 24th.  This is a small jar.  My plants keep giving me the same amount of peas every other day.  Maybe I should have planted eight squares instead of two squares???

Lettuce - June 6

I have lots of lettuce in the fridge.  I've even given some away.  My original plan was to plant four squares of spinach and four squares of lettuce.  I was going to plant one square of each two-weeks apart until all squares were planted.
Well, I planted two squares of lettuce and spinach and one square of a mixed variety timely.  The other squares I waited too long.  I still had plenty of lettuce for our family.  Next year I will plant three squares of lettuce and three squares of lettuce.  This frees up two squares which is perfect because I need them for my Bok Choy :)

Today (June 24 - it is now too hot for lettuce and spinach - I picked the rest of the lettuce and spinach and now I have to wait to plant again at the end of the summer.  I had fresh lettuce and spinach for a little over a month.  I have lettuce in my fridge which I'm sure will last 2-3 weeks longer?  So I'm guessing from my spring and fall plantings I will have my lettuce for almost four months out of the year.  I wish it was more, but four is better than none.  I'm going to hate having to buy lettuce and spinach once this runs out :(

June 4 - Bok Choy

June 4 - Harvested my Bok Choy - I have never used Bok Choy while cooking.  I'm making stir fry tonight.

Picture does not look at good as it looked in person and as good as it tasted.  I LOVE Bok Choy!  I only planted two squares and it wasn't enough.  I want to start some plants indoors next year and plant at least four squares.  I will start 8 indoors then once planted outdoors, plant the remaining 8 by seed.

I had planted two plants later in the season purposely to collect seeds.  I knew it would get too hot for the plant to grow to full size before bolting.  Right now (June 24) they have lots of flowers.  I hope the seeds are ready for my fall planting.

May 30th Progress

GardenBox 1

Bok Choy, Carrots, Radishes, Lettuce, Spinach, Onions, Lettuce, Beans

GardenBox 2
Potatoes, Green Onions, Peppers, Peas, Cucumbers

Flowers on peas - Very exciting for me.  They started to flower as soon as my moms came to visit :)

Peas climbing on the trellis from the back

OMG.  My pepper plants are growing peppers!  What's exciting to me is the first plant to start growing peppers is the Fresno pepper...my hometown!!!!

GardenBox 3
Tomatoes, a weed, Basil, Oregano, Rosemary
Add cages this week
I need one more square cage and they seem to be impossible to find :(

View of all three gardens.  My backyard is horrible as you can see...my garden area is my little oasis.  I keep it weeded and have grass clippings (Thanks Krista!) around the garden boxes to help alleviate weeds and so that I'm not walking in mud.  My father-in-law gave me some carpet scraps.  I may add them this weekend.

Father-in-law's garden

More of his garden

Woo Hoo!  My mom bought me another pot.  I'm not sure if I can wait until next year to plant it.  We will see what happens.  It's beautiful.

I needed a way to water my garden area where I planted seeds which have not germinated yet.  I've been watering with a cup which is more gentle than a hose.  The cup still lifts up the seeds and scatters them everywhere they shouldn't be. While shopping with my mom, we came across the hose nozzle that has 1,000 holes which makes the water  that comes out super soft and gentle.

I had to share this photo.  I was thinning out my carrots and pulled this little baby carrots out.  I'm going to add them to my salad tonight.  They actually look like carrots instead of small colorless roots.  So cute.

I finally planted my babies!!!! May 18-21st

I grew an eggplant for my father-in-law and so did his brother (real farmer)...well, here they are...which one do you think I grew?  No!!!  I grew the green one.  His brother hasn't seen my eggplant but swears his is better than anyone's....seriously?  LOL

GardenBox 1 - 8 Bok Choy, 32 Carrots, 16 radishes, 8 pole beans (will have 32), 9 Spinach (will have 27), 10 lettuce (will have 15), 10 spicy lettuce, several onions

GardenBox 2 - 2 Potatoes, several green onions, 8 Cucumbers (will have 16), 16 peas,  1 Eggplant,  8 Peppers (variety).  Today I finally planted my peppers and eggplant.

GardenBox 3 - 12 Tomatoes, 1 Basil, 1 Rosemary, 1 Oregano...and an empty square for my cilantro that I never grew.  My father-in-law has some growing in his garden and I will transplant some once they get a bit bigger.  I also planted my tomatoes.  The herbs were planted a week before.

My first harvest!!!!!  (May 20th)

Second harvest (May 21st)  Don't worry, I'm not going to show you each time I harvest.

Mother's Day - May 13

My favorite thing to do on Mother's Day is plant my annual plants.  This Mother's Day I had two new pots to plant in, an awesome Western Garden Book, and a new garden hose...Let's not forget my bouquet of flowers.  My family has me figured out.

Pot 1 - This is my awesome new pot for this year.  It is so heavy it's unbelievable.  My next update I'll have to take a better picture so you can see how pretty this pot is.

I usually buy so many annuals that you cannot see any dirt in any of my pots.  Then in a month or so, the pot has too much.  I'm trying to see what happens if I give the plants some room to grow.  I still planted them way closer than the tags say, but it's much better than I used to do.  I figured every couple of weeks I'll post updated pictures so I can so just how much each type of annual changes.

Pot 2

Pot 3 -  new pot my mom bought me last time she was visiting - the next picture I will have to not take from the top view   because the pot itself is pretty cool - The white/purple flowers reminds me of the house I grew up in.  I'm sure these were perennials there.  I remember these in our yard.  I never cared for them much but when I saw them in the nursery this year, I just had to have them.  

Pot 4 - I got this pot last year.  This was my husband's mother and step-father's pot.  I thought it was pretty neat to have.  I will do better taking pictures to include the pots so you can see them.

Pot 5 - This pot is old and plastic and is breaking.  I'm replacing this pot next year.

Pot 6 - this was my new pot last year.

Window Box 1 - my husband made me these nice window boxes for the front of the house.  I only bought different types of sweet potato vines and a couple petunias.  Each sweet potato plant was $5...I have two boxes...let's see, that's $50!!  I read only how to grow my own...it makes me sick how easy it is.  I will never buy these again.

Window Box 2 - Just wait...these suckers will get big!

I had two extra petunias from planting my window boxes...I'm doing an experiment.  I place a branch behind them to see if they will vine up the branch.  I heard they will climb.  I thought it could look pretty cool if it actually does it.