Tomatoes, Asparagus & Mulch

Today I weeded the garden beds, planted the 19 tomatoes, watched Aaron rip his hands to shreds as he pounded in my rebar tomato stakes, got straw on most of the beds, planted sunflowers, and planted the asparagus after Aaron was kind enough to dig the trenches.

A few tomatoes seem to have gotten sunburn, even though they've already been outside for about a week and a half. Any idea what's going on?

The bush beans are coming up! :)

Potatoes

Sometime this winter I bought some organic potatoes at the local co-op with the intention of eating them...but that never happened. My parents were in town last weekend, and when Dad saw them in the closet, he said I should plant them. I think my husband wanted to buy some power tools, so he offered to build a potato box. For his first try with the circular saw, it wasn't bad. I'm sure my next potato box will be perfect :) Supposedly you can grow 100 pounds of potatoes in this thing. We'll see. If it works, we're ready to buy seed potatoes next year and have 2 or 3 of these boxes.

Pretend this is dated April 23

I have been neglecting the blog for awhile, but only because we've been doing so much work!

The following photos were taken on April 23 towards the end of my indoor seed starting. Everything is now in the garden except the tomatoes and sunflowers...I'll try to get out today and take updated pictures.

The entire seed-starting rack. Not quite at the fullest point of the spring.

Parsley & Chard seedlings. These ended up planted together in containers, since I also planted chard from seed in the garden.

My onions. They're a little sad. Next year I'm starting them in potting soil instead of seed starting mix, since I hate the concept of fertilizing. I've also learned to plant them a lot closer together to save room.

Basil in the front, peppers in the back.

An entire flat of peppers - Blue Nose Bell, Garden Sunshine, Jalepeno, Aurora, Candlelight

Tomatoes. I planted Sheboygan, Amish Paste, Italian, Blondkopfchen, and Yellow.

Leeks, more tomatoes, and some peppers that never made it - started too late.

I got antsy in January and started some lettuce seed to see how it would grow under the lights. It definitely got long, skinny leaves that weren't very crisp. I transplanted these into some containers, and now they seem to be doing ok. It really didn't give me a headstart on my lettuce, though.