Blooming Natives

Coral Honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens

Lanceleaf Coreopsis, Coreopsis lanceolata

Oakleaf Hydrangea, Hydrangea quercifolia

The Ladybug

Lots of Tomatoes Fruiting

All the tomatoes have a good bit of fruit set.

Liguria Tomato

Matt's Wild Cherry Tomatoes

Even the Jalapenos have peppers...

And I need more ladybugs.  Aphids are attacking the zipper peas and onions.

Wonderful Peas

The sugar snap peas have been delicious.

Survived!

Everything survived the couple of freezing nights and is thriving again since temps have been in the upper 70s and low 80s.

I bought a few more plants:

Rosita eggplant
Casper eggplant
Black Beauty eggplant
Rosa Bianca eggplant
Iko Iko sweet pepper
A few hot chilis (cayenne-like?)
Jalapeno pepper

I'm still on the hunt for Thai chili peppers.

I also bought some flowering plants to help attract pollinators. I enjoy red pentas, any petunias, any million bells, and marigolds do double duty planted in with the tomatoes.

The tomatoes are blooming and beginning to fruit.  Some of them have funny muli-flower blooms... Opinions on that are mixed, so I am leaving them alone.

The sugar snap peas have been heavy with blooms, and I picked my first pods today.  Lots more peas to come!

Night 2 Freeze

Well, tonight's supposed to be even colder, so I added even more blankets to the tomato tent.  Here's hoping!

Oops... Freeze

Going to have to tuck in the tomatoes for the next few nights as the temperatures reach freezing.  Will be interesting to see how they take it.

Sugar Sprint Peas

When looking for winter/spring seeds last year, I was browsing the smaller, dwarf varieties since my garden is small and I grow many things in containers.  I happened upon Sugar Sprint Peas from Johnny's Seeds.  The vines grow 2 ft. tall.  I did decide to give mine some support, and with plenty of water and some warm sunny days, they are full of blooms. 

I like their delicate white blossoms.  Peas have been fairly easy to grow.  They do a good job feeding themselves, collecting nitrogen from the air and fixing it to the soil.  Really, they just need watering.

Someone else thinks their bright green vines look like a bed of wriggly lizard tails...

The green onions are just waiting to be pulled at this point.  Also, more lizards?

She ate all my carrots this year, but they all were dog-bite-sized anyway (so I dug them up and gave them to her).

More Tomatoes

I added 3 more tomatoes.  Here's a list of what's planted (one of each, 12 total):

• Cherokee Purple
• Liguria
• Dr. Marvel PhD (local variety)
• Farmer Herman's Little Yeller (local variety)
• Rosella Purple Dwarf (determinate)
• Red Patio (determinate)
• Black Cherry
• Matt's Wild Cherry
• Jaune Flamme
• Eva Purple Ball
• Nyagous
• Paul Robeson

The sugar snap peas are just starting to bloom.

Tomatoes

I bought 9 tomato plants and got them in containers over the weekend.

Spring 2017

Planning to take gardening lightly this year.  I'm waiting for the seedlings to be available at the plant nurseries.  I'm mostly interested in hot peppers (thai hot chili, jalapeno, serrano) and tomatoes (cherry and slicing).

Most of the drier herbs are starting to come back.  I think one of three thyme plants is dead, but it gave me 2 years.  The parsley also over wintered and hasn't stopped putting out new growth.

I don't plan on buying any veggie seeds, but I did get some free from the library:

Mortgage Lifter Tomato - started today

Genovese Basil - started today
Zipper Peas - Direct sew in Mar/Apr

I had to laugh at the Zipper peas. Not sure how many peas a couple of plants will produce, but it'll be fun.

I also recently sewed some sugar snap peas, and they are an inch or so above ground now.

Otherwise, I have some cold weather holdovers (carrots, green onions, lettuce, cilantro).  Only the onions are worth the effort, but the dog has enjoyed all of the carrots.

The native plants are starting to show life again.  Here's the passiflora coming back from the ground.

Still Warm

The weather has been unseasonably warm with a record high or two. It's also been dry for a month or so.

The raised beds are slow growing. The left is full of collards, and the right is a mix of turnips, lettuce, Asian greens, and onions.

The carrots and onions are now mulched for moisture retention and to keep the soil cooler.  I'm hoping this encourages larger carrot roots.  Mulching does make a big difference.

Morris Heading Collards

The collard seedlings have grown enough to transplant, so into the south raised bed they went today.  I added some light mulching around them to help protect them from drying out too quickly.  As they grow larger, I can add more.  I also over-planted them, not only in their starter trays, but also in the raised bed.  If any die right away, I have more on standby.  The seeds were very prolific, so hopefully the plants will be resilient.

Morris Heading Collards, small but plentiful.

The back of the bed is standing by for cabbage seedlings, once they get big enough.

All The Seeds

I finished planting one of the raised beds with the rest of the fall seeds I had. 

Seeds included:
Shanghai Green Pak Choi
Ching Chang Bok Choi
Baby Oakleaf Lettuce
Butter King Lettuce
Flashy Lightning Lettuce
Little Gem Lettuce
Salad Bowl Looseleaf Lettuce (Free from library)
Cilantro (Free from library)

Already planted:
Hakurei Turnips
Danvers Half Long Carrots
Oxheart Carrots
Cosmic Purple Carrots
Bunching onions from dad

Here's the layout of the north raised bed:

 The carrots and onions are coming along nicely.

More Seeds

The carrots and onions are up!

I started some seeds today: Brunswick Cabbage (a free gift), Morris Heading Collards, and Five Color Silverbeet Swiss Chard (free from library).  I'm supposedly behind on starting stuff, but last year everything got too hot when I planted earlier.

I still have Harukei turnips, bok choy, cilantro, and lettuces to plant.  I still need to clean out the garden and planters for those since they will be direct seeded.  The peppers are still in the ground, though I have plucked all the fruit (the poblano finally produced a handful or two of small peppers!).

The weather turned a little cooler for the first time this season overnight w/ lows near 60 and window-open weather today.  It will get hotter again though, so I'm trying to be cautious about these winter plants.  Some of them won't even germinate at recent temps.

Meanwhile, I have about 8 native hibiscus plants that are ready for permanent planting.  Will I ever get an area set up in the side yard?  Stay tuned.

Carrots & Onions

Planted carrots and onions today.  Otherwise, still cleaning up from summer garden.

Cosmic Purple
Danvers Half Longs
Oxheart

Cardinal Flower in Bloom

Native Hibiscus Update

I up-potted 12 healthy native swamp hibiscus today.  I hope they can grow enough to survive over winter, even if they die back.  I'm still a bit shocked that almost all the seeds I planted came up.  I'm sure not all 12 will survive to adulthood though, so I'll happily take more than I need.

The cardinal flower is almost in bloom.  It has 5+ bloom spikes this year.  It seems to bloom a little late, but it's probably due to the lighting it gets.  I'm hoping to divide the plant sometime in the winter.

I've let the aphids take over the beans.  Maybe that will keep them away from my peppers and eggplants.

State of the Garden

It's been hot, hot, hot.  Most of the garden isn't doing well.

The tomatoes are done except for a few fruits and some blooms up top. I haven't been watering them, and although they get an afternoon shower most days, it's not helping with the heat. 

The beans have just been tortured by wave after wave of aphids. To the point where I don't like beans enough to keep up the battle. Seriously, ridiculous amounts of aphids. I have sprayed and smeared their dead little bodies off my bean plants over and over and over.

The eggplants and peppers are perking up a bit with the rain.  They are putting out a new wave of blooms, and some are fruiting.  I hope the blooms on the goat pepper produce.

The water-loving herb garden has become a forest of basil blooms. They are feeding the pollinators, a worthier cause than feeding me.

Finally, A Monarch

A Queen last year, Gulf Fritillaries and Zebra Longwings this year, and finally I find a tiny Monarch caterpillar on my pink swamp milkweed!

Not much going on in the garden. Long beans are producing another round, tomatoes are mostly done for the moment although blooming a bit, peppers continue to make a few fruit, herb garden has gone to blooms (basils).  The stinkbugs have been pretty bad.

I'm starting some native plant seeds.  I want to make a small native garden on the west side of my house.  Coming up so far are last year's seeds from the swamp hibiscus.  I filed each seed's coating off in a couple of spots to help them germinate.  Very high success rate!  Hopefully, they will survive over winter, though the above-ground foliage will die back.

Also planted: coneflower, blue-eyed grass, columbine, and liatris.  I replanted the coneflower cells today with fresh seeds off my plant to hopefully give them a better success rate.