The landscapers came this morning to rototill the garden. They cleared the weeds, but the soil was still too wet and just clumped up and clogged the tiller. They will try again on Saturday, it looks like several dry days in between.

I hand weeded this bed then scraped the surface with a shovel and raked out mostly dandelions. It took several hours, but I got the be ready and then planted Romas and Hot Peppers. I also emptied the compost bin on this bed. There is 4 or 5 feet of bed left between the peppers and Romas, I will probably plant eggplant in the space.

So this is the bed nearest to the barn and here is what was planted, South to North.

3 Large Hot Hungarian Bell Peppers (Goebberts)
6 Large Jalapeno Peppers (Goebberts)
3 Small Poblano Peppers (Goebberts)

Then there is a space, pbobably for Eggplant.

15 large Roma Tomatoes (Goebberts)

After Tuesday’s 2.5 inches of rain, the weather finally dried out enough that I can begin planting. The soil is still extremely wet, too wet to rototill or turn over. I dug the big weeds out and got the rest the best I could with the cultivator. So at least all of the sweet peppers are in, but I should have been at this point a month ago. I hope this wet spring weather isn’t the new normal.

The peppers are in the bed next to the blackberries and here’s the lineup from South to North:

10 Large Shishito peppers (Bonnie Plants – Home Depot)
2 Large Lady Bell Peppers (Goebbert’s)
3 Small Lady Bell Peppers (Goebbert’s)
3 Large Sweet Banana Peppers (Goebbert’s)
3 Small Sweet Banana Peppers (Goebbert’s)
6 Small Valencia Peppers (Goebbert’s)
3 Small Melrose Peppers (Goebbert’s)
3 Small Gypsy Peppers (Goebbert’s)

I need to put bottomless pots around the plants, lest they become rabbit food.

We just had the wettest May on record with 8.25 inches of rain. Last year was the second wettest with 8.21 inches. Then in the early morning hours of June 5, we were blessed with another 2.5 inches of rain. The ground is completely saturated. We got a significant amount of seepage in the basement, and some of it did make it to the rec room carpeting, so I spent the day mopping up with the wet-vac and moving fans around. At least it didn’t keep me from gardening. We’ll need at least a couple of dry days before I can do anything.

Pots by the deck:
2 Husky Cherry Red
2 Goebberts Grape Tomato

Garden Pots:
1 Sungold
1 Sun Sugar

1 Chocolate Sprinkles
1 Chocolate Cherry

Parsley
Rosemary
Sage
Basil

Oregano

APRIL 27th!!!

Looks like the garden is going in late this year.

So we are back to snow! Last Sunday was Easter, the temp was 76 and sunny and we spent most of the afternoon on the deck at Jared’s. They are talking 45 degrees tomorrow, and then in the 50s and 60s all week. It is also going to rain all week. The landscapers didn’t show up this week to do clean-up, so it may be late May or early June before the garden is in.

So, here’s our April 14, Palm Sunday surprise. We eventually got 5 inches of snow. The weather is warming, so it should be gone in a day or two as we’ll hit almost 70 degrees later in the week. But the warmer weather will also bring rain so the prospects of doing anything to prepare the garden are bleak.

It is also Holy Week with Easter being about as late as it gets. This is the week I usually make horseradish, but with the snow and then the rain coming, it will be impossible to get it out of the ground. Storebought horseradish on Easter!

If the rain stops, maybe I can have the beds built and ready to go by early May.

I placed my order for garden seeds today from Terroir Seeds in Arizona. I really don’t have a place to start seeds indoors this year so these will all be directly seeded into the garden.

For greens I ordered Arugula and Pak Choi which I have grown before and had success with. I am trying Strawberry Spinach for the first time since it looked interesting.

In the cucumber family are the True Lemon Cucumbers which I have grown before and absolutely delicious right off the vine. Also, Cucamelon and Armenian Pale green cucumbers will be tried this year.

As an experiment in weird vegetables, I ordered Achocha, Vine Peach and Poha Ground Cherry seeds.

Finally on the herb side we’ll be trying Epazote, a classic Mexican Spice and the totally off the wall Crystalline Iceplant.

Hoping the weather will be good enough so I can get my raised beds installed and the ground prepared before summer. It’s been a cold, wet spring so far, thus I am not getting my hops up yet since fall cleanup never happened again because of the rain and sudden onset of winter last November.

We are just back from our Phoenix vacation and it’s time to think about this year’s garden. Fall cleanup never happened last year because of the wetness and the sudden onset of winter in November. Being pre-occupied with kitchen remodeling didn’t help either.

After clean-up, I plan on installing 3 new raised garden beds between the walkway and the fence. I looked at kits or the possibility of building them from cedar but I can’t afford $300. per bed. After a bit of research, I determined that the currently treated lumber should be safe since the copper compounds now used are relatively safe and tend to stay in the wood.

So the plan is a quantity of 3 beds made from 2X12 lumber and concrete corner blocks designed for garden beds. The third bed will be an additional 6 inches higher, and I’ll build a detachable cover with plastic film for that one so it can be used as a cold frame in spring and winter. The others will have detachable chicken wire covers to keep God’s little woodland creatures from dining on my newly emerging seedlings and young plants. There are plenty of tasty dandelions around, so I’m not worried that they will starve. I’ll probably only add 4-6 inches of soil to each of the beds.

I might reconstruct the other two existing raised beds in the same manner if I have time.

Kitchen Remodeling dominated my life this summer and is still not totally complete. Heavy spring and early summer rains prevented the planting of spring crops, stunted the growth of the peppers and let the weeds get totally out of control.

The heirloom tomatoes produced early and well in spite of the weather with Cherokee Carbon being an extremely flavorful and prolific producer. I was late getting plum tomatoes and bought San Marzano instead of Roma from Goebbert’s. They didn’t produce as well as the Romas, but it might have been the weather. We’ll stick with Roma next year.

The peppers were very late and the green peppers weren’t very large, even at the end of the season. I picked a lot of peppers to freeze in mid-October, which was when they finally matured. The Shishito peppers produced very well and I would like to plant more next year. I got 6 plants by visiting multiple Home Depots. Sweet Heat and Spanish Spice peppers were totally tasteless, I probably won’t plant those again.

I think I prefer the purple tomatillos to the green ones, they seem to be a little sweeter.

For a garden that received little care, it did well enough and I was able to give a lot of tomatoes away.