Beans for Mother's Day

On Mother's Day, I planted the first of our beans—pole beans. This year I'm growing Purple Trionfino and Rattlesnake beans. I like these because they're purple, which makes them easy to pick. Every year that I've grown beans I've lost my trellis to severe thunderstorms, so this year I'm trying something different—bamboo teepees. Yup, I'm finally growing my pole beans on poles. The teepees have 6 poles each, and I planted 6 seeds per pole as the packet instructed. That sure seems like a lot of beans. Of course, less than 24 hours after planting a line of sever weather came marching through, and the teepees seem to be taking it well. Once it stops raining and it's a little less soggy outside, I'll plant the next round of beans—favas (first time growing those).

Yesterday I also transplanted four heads of red leaf lettuce, seeded three square feet of chard (4 seeds per foot), and planted nine square feet of beets (9 seeds per foot). I potted up about half of the pepper seedlings, and will do the rest later this week. The biggest task was to move a bunch of woodchips from the back of our lot line (where the landscaper got a little overzealous and encroached on our neighbor's lot) to the front of the garden to give the hedge some growing room. My job was easy—lay down newspaper 20" from the hedge line. Aaron actually hauled all the woodchips from back to front. He did an excellent job.

On Thursday, my father-in-law delivered the new arbor and gate he made for us. Isn't it gorgeous?

The gate (not pictured) will be attached to two 4 x 4's that need to be dug into the ground. They'll attach directly to the front of the gate. This year, I'm planning to grow Morning Glories up and over the arbor (I got some seeds for free with a Seed Savers order). Next year, perhaps beans, malabar spinach, or even some squash or melons. Once those posts are in the ground, nothing will pull this over.

Since I'm linking this to Daphne's Harvest Monday post, I should talk about what I harvested.

See that fresh basil on top of the chicken parmesan? I harvested the tops of three seedlings so I could garnish the dinner I made for me and my parents. It was a useful harvest, not just because it was DELICIOUS, but because I normally pick the top off the basil early to encourage it to branch out and form additional stems. For the record, the sauce was homemade, but from a local farmer's tomatoes because I didn't have a garden last year.

Seed Starting Update: Alliums, Brassicas & Herbs

Today was the third seed-starting day of the 2014 gardening season. I have now filled an entire shelf on my grow rack.

I planted the onions and leeks on February 16, and they received their first haircut last weekend. They're looking great.

Last weekend, I started broccoli, cauliflower, celery, eggplant, head lettuce, and chives. The celery, eggplant, and chives haven't germinated yet. I put the eggplant seeds on a heat mat today to help with germination. The broccoli & cauliflower are looking great, but the lettuce was easiest to photograph.

Today I seeded herbs, including basil, cilantro, dill, fennel, mint, oregano, parsley, sage, and thyme. Some of the plants don't really need to be started early (cilantro for sure), but I'm looking forward to having an early crop and then seeding successive crops in the garden.

Speaking of the garden, the snow is gone! I haven't walked out there yet, but the weeds that I didn't get to last fall are definitely waiting for me. One bed is planted with garlic and covered in a loose layer of hay. I hope to see some green shoots poking up there soon.

Yesterday I got my first delivery of cuttings for the edible hedge—a dozen red currant plants. Given that we have snow in the forecast tomorrow, and we haven't yet staked out the border, they'll be hanging out in the garage for a week. I'm confident we can stake the border next weekend and get the currant plants in on Sunday. The rest should arrive in mid April.

This is going to be quite the transformational year for the back yard. In addition to the hedge planting, we'll be adding an arbor with a gate, finally having a full season of vegetables, and we'll be adding a patio outside the dining room. It should give us some excellent outdoor living space to enjoy a Wisconsin summer.

Next week, it's time to start peppers!!

Harvest Monday - June 11, 2012

Some of these radishes were harvested this week, and some the week before. This represents a little less than half of my entire radish harvest. I grew three varieties - I think I'm only going to bother with one next year - hopefully one that sizes up better than my Easter Egg and French Breakfast radishes did. Many of them failed to form a suitable root at all.

All of this lettuce was harvested on Wednesday. It's a mix from Pine Tree, as well as a lot of yellow oak leaf lettuce I had left over from last year.

This is the second harvest of scapes; the first harvest was about the same amount. I have a total of 10 heads of hard neck garlic planted, and about half of them have scapes left (some more in the shade are still forming) - I'm waiting for them to make "the curl" before I cut them.

If you pretend that I have another picture of lettuce and scapes exactly like the ones above, that's what I harvested on Sunday night.

Although it's not from my garden, we picked 38 pounds of strawberries from a local fruit farm on Sunday morning. We have about 6 gallons of frozen berries, 13 jars of jam, and a few quarts for fresh eating this week.

Happy harvesting! Check out harvests from around the world on Daphne's Dandelions.