Peas are out – baby lemon cucumber starts are in. I picked up a clearance flat of corn and I’m setting up a second 4 x 8 raised bed for that, hopefully I’ll have it in tomorrow. I might have wasted my money buying corn so late, but it was only $5 for the whole flat, and the lady threw in some pear tomatoes, four lemon cucumbers, and two mini watermelon starts. So I’m putting them in and what the heck, we’ll just see how they do. I picked all the peas in the past week, most went in the freezer, and today I pulled out the vines and turned over their squares, added a little compost, and planted the little cukes there.

Meanwhile squash are getting a quick start in the pots next to the garden, and the cukes, butter squash, and beans I planted are coming up fast too. And the broccoli have little heads starting. One tomato plant even has tomatoes starting! Everything seems to like the hot weather, except the lettuce, which turned bitter!

The garden is continuing to plug along, doing better still than I have ever done before, but a few challenges still. There is something planted in every square, though not everything has come up yet, and the carrots and pac choi were decimated by the slugs.

The peas are doing fantastic. I’ve picked a few and eaten them raw and they are so good! They’re almost ready to pick. There’s three different kinds of plants there, and they are supposed to make a staggered harvest. It looks to me like it’s not going to be staggered by much, maybe a week at most. You can see cabbage and lettuce at the foot of the pea plants.

The broccoli did nothing for the longest time, but it suddenly has put on a few more leaves and I see a little broccoli head starting. Next square over has the carrots that survived the slugs.

The tomatoes and peppers in pots are doing better than the ones in the garden, even though it’s the exact same soil mix. The potted tomatoes are getting flowers on them. A couple of the ones in teh garden are too, but they aren’t as big or healthy looking, and don’t have as many flowers.
This is my baby bell pepper plant. I think the peppers all were shocked by the transpant. I was told to use Miracle Gro on them next year to avoid the shock. Not sure if these will catch up enough to produce any peppers this year.
The other two potted tomato plants also have flowers and are doing so well I need to tie them up. I’ve been pinching off lower branches to encourage them to keep growing. I’m always shy about pruning but I think I feel more confident experimenting with these.

We’ve been enjoying lots of lettuce, spinach and radishes from the garden so far. The hot weather seems to have turned the radishes bitter. It also caused the spinach and the bigger radishes to bolt. I pulled the spinach plants and gave them to the goats and replanted those squares with something else, chives I think.

The tomatoes are planted, and safely under cloches. It’s warm one day and cold the next, so it was a little questionable as to if I should plant them or not, but they were getting rootbound in the little containers, so I decided to go for it. The stem on my main season tomato snapped while planting it, so I went and found a replacement at the garden center. It’s a ‘Willamette’. So from right to left, I have one of each variety – ultra early, extra early, early, main season, and cherry tomato. The rest of the extra tomatoes are in pots on the patio.

The slugs have been winning the battle, so I resorted to putting down slug bait. I hated to do it, but the stuff says it’s safe for pets and wildlife (none of which should be in my garden anyway). This picture shows my carrots – they’re in those empty squares. The slugs have been gobbling up the greens as soon as they appear. I planted them the same time as the chard in the squares above them. I don’t know if the carrots can recover.

Then I planted my peppers and put homemade cloches over them. The peppers are mini red bell peppers. We use a lot of bell peppers so I hope I can get those two plants to produce well. There’s also a third plant in a pot on the patio.

We had our first fresh radishes out of the garden this week. Unfortunately, the slugs did too!

I have read that slugs won’t cross copper. So I got some old copper pipes and beat them flat and put them around the edge of the garden bed. Since I have been pulling out the slugs I find inside, hopefully this will prevent more from coming in.

Otherwise the garden is looking pretty healthy. Beets and carrots are starting to come up. I’ve planted a second group of radishes so I can keep those continuously producing, and I’ll do the same with carrots and beets and lettuce. Meanwhile the tomatoes inside the house are getting tired of being cooped up, and they enjoyed their little weekend outside while the weather was nice, but it’s turned cold again the last couple days. I might plant them in pots and let them stretch out their roots a bit then move them out in the next week or so.

Time for a garden update. Tomorrow is the average last frost date for the area. The plants inside are growing like gangbusters!

I did a little experiment. I took two of the Ultra Early tomatoes and when I planted them in the little peat pots, I put one in a small bucket. The tomatoes in the pots have been in the front window on the south side of the house, while the bucket has been in the kitchen on the west side. I would have expected the one on the west side to not do as well, though I thought the bigger container might make a difference. It made a big difference! Look how big the leaves are on the one in the bucket, and the stalk is three times as thick!

Outside the cold-weather plants have been growing well, despite the occasional nibble from bugs. The peas have gotten a growth spurt in the nice weather, and I set up a little chicken wire fence for them to climb on because they were starting to flop over.

And finally, I built an 8 cubic foot compost box for redworm composting. We’ll see how that works. I’ve never had much luck composting, but I thought if it’s small and contained I might be able to keep after it. And if nothing else I can steal a few worms and go fishing!

The tomatoes got so big in their little sprouting pots it was time to move them to bigger quarters. I got these bigger peat pots at the feed store. The idea being that the roots can grow out through them so there’s no need to disturb the plants when it’s transplant time. We’ll see how that all works – I’m a little skeptical. But anyway, I selected the three biggest of each type, and only two of the main season tomatoes, as there will be three cherry tomato plants as well. That’s what I’m hoping for anyway! After my miserable previous attempts, it would be nice to have too many tomatoes! Yes, too many tomatoes, there’s a problem I’d like to have 🙂 Anyway, I planted them deep in the pots to encourage more root growth. We’ll see how they do.

So I moved the transplants to bigger quarters – a little greenhouse made of two storage containers. I hinged it on the back with a couple pieces of wire so I can prop it open for air circulation, but still keep the cats out. I also moved them from the kitchen windowsill to the front room for more direct light.

I see people at the garden center taking home big tomato plants already, and mine look so small! There’s a few weeks before last frost yet, so I hope mine catch up!

In March I planted my first seeds in the garden, and they have popped up. The peas were last to sprout, but they are making up for lost time! Spinach, lettuce, and cabbage are all coming along nicely.

About a week ago I started tomatoes and peppers indoors, and they are coming up. I just have to keep them safe from the cats! Tomatoes came up first, peppers are still just pushing up, so they are covered with the plastic box.

Today I put out seeds for the plants that said on the packet to wait until 6 weeks ’til last frost. Last frost is estimated to be mid-May, about 4 weeks from now. So that is carrots, radishes, chard, beets, and broccoli.

I completed the rabbit-proof fence around the garden. I hope the rabbits don’t really test it! The front panels are removable so I can reach in there and work.

I have a big whiteboard where I write down what I planted, where, and when. Then I can plan where I want things to go and take it outside with me when I plant. Because it is a ‘square-foot garden’, I also note how many plants are in each square. Anything growing where I didn’t plant it is a weed and gets pulled. Some people say I’m a control freak, so this is a good way for me to keep track of what I’m doing. Frankly, if I don’t document everything to this level it will all fall apart before I harvest anything. So far this is the most successful garden I’ve done in years!

Every year I try gardening, and every year I fail miserably. Sure I’ve had some nice cherry tomato plants now and then, usually in containers on the patio, but I have never had much luck with the big tomatoes, or any other plants. So I read a book called ‘square foot gardening’, and felt inspired to try again, this time with a raised bed, hand mixed soil, and a square foot grid (the bottom squares are only half foot, but they had to fit in my flowerbed area. I just finished it today and I’m ready to plant peas. We’ll see how it goes!