EMERGENCE!

Ok, it's been almost a week since my last post - SORRY! It rained A LOT last weekend, so there isn't anything I could do in the garden...but the plants had plenty to do!

I went out today and planted zucchini. I removed the asparagus plants (RIP) and using their row for the zucchini. I'm looking forward to the assortment of squash this summer (zucchini and eggplant.)

Here is a picture of the freshly planted and watered zucchini. Please note, it's incredibly windy today. Check out the emergence of the corn next to my garden!



As a part of my blog, I plan to give regular updates on each of vegetables on a semi-regular basis. Here is your first progress report:

Tomatoes - all plants are growing, looking strong

Eggplants - great leaf growth in these plants, they really strive in our soil type

Green Peppers and Jalapenos - looking good, growing

Banana Peppers - all plants growing well

Onions - some have taken off quicker than others - hopefully this will result in a spread out growing season

Snow Peas - I fear a repeat of last year's sugar snap pea disaster, I see nothing........

Green Beans - EMERGENCE. They look great coming out of the ground!



Lettuce - I had no idea how to plant the lettuce, so I may have not spread it out enough. But, more emergence!



Radishes - The last thing planted from seed, the radishes seem to be flourishing! Glad I have a lot of friends who like Radishes!



I'm still looking for a good selection of watermelon and cantaloupe plants. I plan to check out the Macon County Extension's plant sale this weekend and see what I can find.

The Saga Continues....

After my asparagus post the other day, lots of friends volunteered information regarding the process. The conclusion? My roots aren't going to produce anything this year. *sigh*

The new plan is to dig up the asparagus roots and plant zucchini over them. The zucchini wasn't in the original plan and was brought up by a blog commenter. I do have some great zucchini recipes and would love to try zucchini bread - so here you go!

I would have added a row of zucchini earlier, but I was concerned about cross-pollination between the zucchini plants and the cantaloupe I plan to add soon. With the open spot in the middle of the garden, I have an opportunity for Zucchini! YAY!

Not much is happening in the garden at the moment, but we do have some volunteer green onions that grow by the cave in our yard. They are always fresh and yummy! They are really prospering this year too! Soo exciting.

Green onions:

Rain is a Good Thing!

Wednesday evening I went out to add the other banana pepper to the garden. I had some VERY sad looking plants. I knew it was supposed to rain a little that evening, but our weather people aren't exactly the most accurate folks...so I decided to water them anyhow.

The hose:



Here is where it needs to go (taken from the hose's point of view):



I dont have a problem watering the garden, but it takes two really long hoses to even get there! LOL.

When I went out today, I had VERY happy plants. They were standing tall and loving the sunlight.

Happy Plant!



Mother Nature is scheduled to take care of the watering this weekend. Rain is a good thing!

Green Thumb

A blog follower has already complained about the lack of pictures. She will remain nameless, but she's a little photo obsessed *hint* *hint*.

So here's a picture of my green thumb!



*Slaps knee* Har Har Har!

Confusion in Gardening

We finally found a single banana pepper plant at Farm and Fleet. It was much bigger than the one I planted Sunday, but I really wanted to get another one in the ground.

I went to plant it and realized this is a sweet banana pepper plant. The previous plant was a "hot" banana pepper plant. Variety is the spice of life, right? I had no idea there were differences in banana peppers considering the "hot" ones are only mildly hot!

After a quick google search, I'm still equally confused - it appears there may be no difference between these plants! A lot of websites use a general "banana pepper" term.

While I'm on the topic of confusion, I would like to talk about my asparagus. My mom told me it takes awhile (like years) for asparagus to grow. She said it would take more than one season for it to produce anything. I listened but disregarded her comments when my package of asparagus roots mentioned nothing of the sort!

Monday, I found aspargus plants at Farm and Fleet. Their package said they would not produce asparagus this year. FRUSTRATION. So, I turned to my friend, Google. My research concluded that asparagus does take three years to mature and grow to the vegetable we see in the stores. No wonder it is so expensive! Sorry, Mom

This research left nothing but questions for me. How old are my roots? Are they on their third year? Is that why their package didn't mention waiting years for a product?

I'm hoping that I purchased three year old roots and I will be pleasantly surprised in 72 days! I'll keep you posted.

Adding to the Garden....

Once I planted the garden last week, I realized I had some room for additional plants. This week has been an adventure in finding the additional plants.

I needed about 4 more tomatoes, so I ended up purchasing a 9pk of Beefsteak tomatoes. I only planted 4 of them though! We now have three varieties of tomatoes in the garden (Early Girl, Better Boy and Beefsteak), totalling 15 plants! I apparently didn't get enough tomatoes to eat or give away last year...so we're trying for more.

We also had space for about 1/2 row of something, an additional eggplant and one more banana pepper plant. These proved to be an adventure.

I found nothing of interest at Lowe's while I was buying the tomato plants, so my next stop was Farm and Fleet. They had nothing in their plant area, but I was able to pick up some radishes. Note to self: Mondays are not a good time for plant shopping. My partner in crime, Ryan, searched some stores and found an eggplant, but still no banana peppers.

One Day Behind the Farmer's Almanac - TIME TO PLANT

Today was the day. I planted my heart out. It must be the farmer's daughter in me, but I'm really particular about straight rows. As if ANYONE cares if my garden has straight rows!!! I replanted a few plants to align properly, but as the day went on - I stopped caring.

I estimate that I planted 80 percent of the garden today. I still need watermelon and cantaloupe plants, plus I'm planning on adding another banana pepper plant, another eggplant, and four more tomato plants. I would still have room for maybe one more vegetable, if I can think of something I would like. Ha!

Here are some pictures from today....the full garden goes back to the flags:


Random plant shot (Early Girl Tomato)

Buying A Tiller May Be Harder Than It Appears

So, in my last post I mentioned we needed a tiller. Ryan and I ventured to Decatur Friday night for dinner and tiller shopping. We were disappointed in the choices we had at Lowes and Menards in Decatur, so randomly decided to drive to Springfield to check out their selection.

Ryan doesn't take his purchases lightly (regardless of the plants dying at home)...so he couldn't commit Friday night to a tiller and we went home empty handed.

Saturday morning, Ryan was up and doing research and ready to purchase a model we saw Friday night. We headed back to Springfield and hit up the Lowes on the west side of town (their inventory said they had 5 available).

No tillers.

They weren't just out of the tiller we wanted, they had NO tillers. The closest Lowes that had our tiller available? Bloomington. UGH. We picked up a few other things while we were there ( eggplants for the garden, gerbera daisies for the yard)and headed to Bloomington.

By the time we got back from Bloomington, it was almost 5 pm. There went any chance of me planting today. But....Ryan worked the ground anyhow! (Thanks, honey!)

More Ground to Work = Tiller Needed

My husband (Ryan) attempted to work the ground tonight, in hopes of me planting tomorrow. He decided we needed a bigger tiller, so we will do some investigating and try again.

Backstory: We actually sold a tiller we had here last year. WHOOPs! Great timing, kids! :(

More Space? More Vegetables!

Although it's only April, it's time to start planting. This is a good month before I planted last year, but this spring is looking to be a lot more pleasant! With 80 degree plus days for a week, it was time to get rolling!

I was driving through Decatur tonight, so I stopped by and picked up the plants (at least the ones I could find). Here is what is planned so far. Last year's will be listed in parenthesis.

9 - Better Boy Tomatoes (7 due to an early death for 2 of them caused by soybean planter)
2 - Early Girl Tomatoes (0)
9 - Green Pepper Plants (5)
9 - Jalapeno Pepper Plants (6)
1 - Banana Pepper Plant (0)
1 - Cayenne Pepper Plant (0)
9 - Broccoli Plants (0)
9 - Cauliflower Plants (0)
??? - Asparagus (0)
Whole Set - Onions (1/4 set)
Whole package - green beans (0)
Whole package - snow peas (0)
Whole package - Lettuce (0)


Things I still need to pick up:
Watermelon
Cantaloupe
Eggplant


Things that were planted last year but didn't make the cut this year:
POTATOES - never again, so disappointing
Tabasco Peppers - we did not use enough of these to justify having them again (replaced with banana and cayenne)
Sugar Snap Peas - *sigh* I had a total of 15 last year. 15 peas. :(
Spinach - didn't yield well

Not As Easy as "Add A Foot or Two"

My garden is more than doubling.

There, I said it. Wow. More than doubling. I can do this! The size wasn't out of choice, but more of necessity. Let me explain.

My garden is in the corner of a field. Last year a soybean field, this year a corn field. Planted firmly in rich, Illinois soil! Black Gold! However, I have to take some things into account when planning my garden. The most important? I need to make it easy for Ryan's cousin Mark who farms the land, setting parameters that don't inconvenience him in any way.

Last year's parameters were simple: the east side of the garden would be a continuum of our yard, the north side would be aligned with the back of the shed. I was very happy with this manageable space for my first garden and Mark made it work.

After the success of last year's garden and my loads of free time, I wanted to add to my garden this year. So where were those easy lines? Not so quaint this year - that's for sure.

My boundaries on the east are pretty set in stone: our yard. However, the easiest point for the North boundary was much further than I had hoped. We aligned it with the other field, taking my North boundary from 14 ft 9 in to 64 ft 9 in!

Time for planning...stay tuned.

A Preface for This Blog

I started a garden in Spring of 2009 - and while I enjoy it..I am by no means an expert. I spent the summer with my small garden, updating my facebook from time to time to give people an idea of what was happening. I didn't realize how many people read my updates - but they seemed to really enjoy them.

This year will be a bigger experiment and I am still learning. With warm weather already setting in, it's time to get digging!