Monday, May 7, 2012

Gardening: Early May 2012

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It has been another long, hectic week at the ol' homestead.  Between scouting, work, and school, I managed to plant 7 tomato plants, 1 cucumber plant, 1 jalapeno pepper,  and peppermint (in a pot).  The trellis was also pulled out of storage and set-up for the cucumber and tomatoes.  I also planted seeds of a few favorite spices: 2 oregano, 1 parsley (my last one bolted), and 2 cilantro.

Before I post the pictures, I NEED HELP! 

1.  I will be planting pole bean (vining) in 9 squares - 8 plants in each square.  What is an easy and inexpensive way to "pole" or support them?  I can't make another trellis because it won't cover all 9 squares well and I'm worried about the shade it may cause.

2.  What can I plant in the 5 squares between the tomatoes and the pepper plants?  It must be easy to maintain since I won't be able to get at it as easily.  Please send some ideas my way!

Here are the 9 squares a'waiting to be seeded with the pole beans....



The empty 5 squares between the tomatoes and peppers...



The whole garden.... (so far)
Tomatoes: 3 Romas, 1 Giganta, 2 Better Boys, 1 Brandywine
Peppers: 4 green bells, 2 yellow bells, 2 red bells, 1 jalapeno
1 vine cucumber



The Pepper Patch


The lonesome cucumber...



My early producing squash family!




Spaghetti Squash...



Yellow Summer Squash



Zucchini Squash.... YUM!



At our local farmer's market, I found the following SALAD BOWL.  Isn't it just great!  There are at least 5 different varieties!  This is just for inside growing... love it!  I have already been grazing on it and you really can't tell.  These plants should produce for about two months; so, in about 3 weeks, I will be planting seeds to transplant later.



The backporch garden is doing well.  The strawberries are producing, and the peppermint smells wonderful.  The basil plant looks like it has seen better days, but check out what I harvested today!  The oregano has been a digging site for some wilderness creature, and it has affected the roots.  I will continue to harvest and will replace with the seedling inside.




Peppermint



Basil and harvest bowl




Soon to be seedlings...


Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.



Happy Gardening!


This post may be linked to Tuesday Garden Party and Bloomin' Tuesday.



Blessings,

Ellen

19 comments:

  1. Coooooooooooooooooooooool, Jacobs is getting big also :) he has some green tomatoes already.
    He wants to do spices now

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  2. Hi Ellen, Your garden is coming along quite nicely. I love your salad bowl.

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  3. Your garden is certainly exploding with good things!
    Maybe you could fill in the centre areas with thyme or some other low-growing herbs. You won't need to harvest them that often if you dry them.

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  4. I love your garden and especially your salad bowl. What a great idea!

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  5. Your garden is beautiful! I actually got to pick two squash late yesterday from our little garden! Love the salad bowl! Hugs and blessings, Cindy

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  6. Hi Ellen,

    Your vegetable garden is going to be awesome! I wish I could assist you with your bean poles, but I don't really know what to recommend. Tasty looking herbs.

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  7. Everything you posted is so tidy looking....

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  8. Wow, your plants are far along! You must be pretty far south (I'm in sw TN). Native Americans in our part of the world (TN and GA) would plant corn, and when the corn was about a foot high they would plant 3 or 4 bean seeds around them to climb up the corn.

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    1. Hi Diana!

      I live just south of Chattanooga, TN. Maybe I jumped the gun on my summer planting, but with the summer-like temperatures I was afraid to hold of too much longer.

      I thought about corn, but they would shade the rest of the garden.

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  9. Wish I had any suggestions for your dilemma. Hope it works out!

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  10. Your garden is so pretty! Marigolds would be lovely there :) I like to plant lettuce in between mine. They enjoy a bit of shade and are ready to come out by the time the tomatoes get big.

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  11. Love your way of veggie gardening. Love fresh veggies especially yellow squash.

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  12. How did you do the salad bowl? Very nice.
    I would suggest not planting anything between the peppers and tomatoes. Mulch it with grass clippings so the weeds won't grow. When the plants are bigger and producing fruit you'll be glad for the distance.
    Anyway, up here in Indiana I haven't planted much yet. Hope to in the next week.
    Blessings.

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    1. Hi Ruth! I found the salad bowl at our local farmer's market. Basically, plant (seed or transplants) into a 6-8" deep pot in good potting soil. Graze off if the mature plants for up to 2 months. During that time, have seedling sprouting to replace the lettuce plants. Ellen

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  13. I don't have any advice for you but all your plants look good.

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  14. Your garden looks lovely--I especially like the pepper plants! As for the beans--I think maybe 8 plants per square is going to be pretty tight spacing. If there is no good way to trellis them, you might want to consider planting bush beans instead, but even then 8 plants per square is going to be really tight. If you were willing to give up one square in the center, you could pound a sturdy tall pole into the ground, and then tie pieces of garden twine to the top, and spread one string per bean square--attach string in the ground tied to a garden staple. It will look kind of like a string teepee. Then the beans could grow up the string. I've grown pole beans this way to good effect. Sorry if this was more advice than you wanted-- best of luck with your garden project!

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    Replies
    1. I love the idea of a green bean teepee! Thanks.

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  15. I'm not sure if this will help or not, but we find fallen tree branches in the woods and use them in our raised beds for climbing plants. Find branches with lots of little branches coming off the ends. Stick the end of the branch into the soil so the many small branches are up and the plants can climb on them. At the end of the season, just pull up. I have photos on my blog of this here: http://oursideofthemtn.blogspot.com/2012/04/busy-week-april-7-13.html. But anyway, your plants look great!

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  16. Your garden looks fabulous - so far ahead of mine!

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Thanks for visiting and sharing your thoughts with me! I look forward to getting to know you better.

If you do not wish to sign-in, please email me your comments and I will post them. Due to too many spam comments, I have chosen to close the comments to anonymous users. Thank you for understanding. ~ Ellen

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