My Vegetables (and herbs)!

Today I went down to the plant sale at the extension office with Richard and my Gene Dad.  We got there about a half hour early and had a nice wet wait in line.  When the sale opened people were running in to get plants.  It seemed just crazy to me, I mean they were actual running to get in there and see the plants first?  There were more then enough plants, silly people.  The sale was super crowded, it made me a bit more anxious then I like, I don't do the best in crowds.  I picked out some vegetable starts, a few tomatoes and a couple different herbs.  I also have a few starts that I started about 3 weeks ago now that are starting to get pretty big.  I am just waiting about another week or two before I put them in the ground (everything else should be going in then too).

The vegetables I've been growing (planted 4/11/10):

Zucchini is probably my favorite vegetable there is, so when I decided to make a garden, planting those was a no brainer.  I decided to try planting them from seed and they seem to be doing pretty well.  Right now I am working on hardening them up, I bring them out in the morning and in every night.  I'll be planting them in a couple weeks but they are getting really good sized!  I also planted yellow squash (zucchini) and French Filet green beans.  I'm not quite sure where I'm putting the beans yet, only two of the beans have sprouted as of right now but it does look like I might be getting a few more seedlings soon.  The green zucchini will be going to the left of the raised bed and the yellow I plan on planting in the space to the right of the box.  Don't be fooled by the number of peat pots you see, I plan on giving some of the starts to my mom.  I really am not keeping ten zucchini and twelve squash plants!

My newly bought vegetables:

I decided to get some lettuce to go in the raised bed.  I will also plant carrots directly into the ground as soon as it's slightly warmer out there.  No garden is complete without carrots!

To go to the left of the raised bed I picked up Snow Crown Cauliflower and some Broccoli.  I'm a little intimidated by the cauliflower but I hope it turns out alright.  I just recently started eating cauliflower so I'm excited about it.  But if they don't turn out they were pretty cheap so if nothing comes from it I didn't spend much, right?

The Tomatoes:

I love tomatoes, Richard not so much.  So I decided not to get too many tomato plants as I can only eat so many after all.  Last year Richard did find out that he enjoyed the Sungold tomatoes that were growing at his mom's house and I think they are amazing to munch on and great for salads.  So I picked up two Sungold tomatoes and a Celebrity (Dad recommended the Celebrity as a good medium sized tomato).  We have three pots to plant them in and some tomato cages to support them as they get bigger.  I don't plan on planting them in their pots for another week or two, but I will certainly have more pictures up of them then.  I'm super excited about these, tomatoes are so expensive this year.

My Herbs:

I decided to go with Dill, Parsley and Cilantro.  Dill goes really well with fish and I really do enjoy my fish.  The other two are things I've been needing alot recently for recipes and it seems like such a hastle to buy fresh, I'm hoping having it on hand will work out well.  I'm planning to put all of the herbs together in a container on the deck.

The Blueberries and Plums (they came with the house):

Every other year it seems the blueberries are plentiful, which means this year we probably won't have quite as many as last year.  There were quite a few flowers on them this year so I'm hoping that we end up with a good amount of them!  Blueberries are so incredibly yummy! I'm sure Rosco can't wait for them to have berries again either, he likes to eat them off the tree and ground and well, he really likes to eat them.

The plum tree is to the far right in this picture, it produced so many plums last year.  However, I am sad to say that last year Rosco ate more of the plums then Richard and I put together.  This year I will make sure to pick more of them!  As you can probably see there is still massive amounts of work (and weeding) to do in the yard, but at least my vegetable garden area is mostly done.  We recently found railroad ties buried in the yard, Richard has been digging up some of the rotten ones and we will be filling the areas in with some of the dirt and rocks that came out of that giant tire (back by the trees in the picture you can see the two mounds of dirt).  Hopefully someday we'll get the yard a little more leveled out.

And now the weeding updates since the last blog:

4/24:  I weeded the rest that goes towards the back fence.  Once I got past the root that is back there it was filled with leaves.  I also cut quite a few branchs out of the big tree that grows back in that corner.  I think it looks so much better all cleaned up back there!  In this picture you can see our shed that I'm planning on replacing this summer.  Because of all the roots from that big tree back there I think it's going to have to go a little further away from the side fence.  We haven't decided on what shed to replace it with yet for sure, but I'm really leaning towards a large barn type one with a loft for some extra storage.

4/25:  I weeded the rest of the side fence back towards the house!  What a mess!  I was dreading weeding this section because it was pretty much like weeding in gravel.  I am guessing that once upon a time that area was part of the gravel driveway.  I still have a few little touch ups to do around the base of the shrubs, but I'm really excited to have the weeding done (at least in my vegetable garden side of the world).  Check out all these weeds, this is what didn't fit in the green bin this week!

Well, that is my update on the garden!  I can't wait to enjoy the fresh produce that I'm growing this year!  OH!  I also have some strawberries that I got from Dad.  Soon I will be planting them in one of those hanging planters, hopefully the birds will leave them alone.  I am super excited about my garden this year, I love feeling like I'm actually doing something productive out there!