Last of the plantings (and summary of the garden)

That's right, this past weekend I managed to finally get my veggies fully planted.  My apologies on no pretty pictures, I'll post some when I get back from vacation and have time to fix the picture importer (plus, more fun to post pictures of what the plants look like a week or two after planting).  I gave up on doing brussel sprouts because I didn't have great luck with them last year and I'm already taking on a hell of a lot in the garden.  So what did I do to round out my veggie garden?

Well, I tilled my finally area of the raised bed in back and planted a few sweet potatoes (purchased as little roots from Burpee) in half and the other half I put in zucchini and yellow squash.  I did four seeds of each in the hopes that two of each sprout and I'll thin it out.  I don't have high hopes for the sweet potatoes in the back because it's not very well tilled or fertilized where I planted them, but I basically just wanted to at least try with the leftover roots I have and see what they do.  The best looking roots I put in my potato grow bag from Gardener's.  I've been told that this area isn't hot enough for sweet potatoes but I at least wanted to try it out once.

I also got tomato cages around my tomatoes and planted the row of snacking sunflowers in front of my house.  I'm still torn about if I want to tackle another large project of digging out another 4 feet or so in front of them to plant the pretty white and maroon sunflowers.  I got a bit behind on that project so I'm considering just waiting to do them until I see how well the first row of sunflowers does, especially because these are annuals that I will have to redo all the work year after year.

So in summary, here is all the veggies I'm trying: fairytale eggplant, black beauty eggplant, four tomato varieties, zucchini, yellow squash, sweet pepper, mildly hot pepper, bush beans, rainbow chard, purple carrot, red/white/yellow onions, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, peas, and sweet potatoes.  Fruit I currently have: strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and fruit trees: dwarf lemon, dwarf lime, dwarf pomegranate, dwarf banana.  The fruit trees are doing well but won't produce any fruit this year while they grow since I just got them.  I'll be doing a separate post on them later in the season.

What I did the weekend of 5/12/2012

Alright, my bad.  I've been so busy gardening that actually posting took a bit of a back seat!  May is easily the busiest month for gardening, but keep faith; once you get all your veggies in the garden all you have to do is maintenance for the rest of the summer.  Just work hard now and remember the payoff.

So what did I do the weekend of May12th?  A lot.  I dug out the front area for the first row of sunflowers, which was far harder than it needed to be because I never got around to killing the grass first.  Whoops, lesson learned.  So lots of digging off the top layer of grass and then shoveling and breaking up the clods of dirt to aerate and till the soil.  I had started to put the sod in my yard waste recycling bin but realized they'd be far more useful in my compost bin, so that's where they ended up. 

In the backyard raised bed garden I planted four tomato varieties: Fourth of July (early variety that I got from Burpee), and three randoms that I just picked up from Home Depot.  I also planted my black beauty eggplant from Burpee, and five peppers.  The peppers I mixed up as seedlings so they are a mix of sweet and mildly hot, all from Burpee and all from seeds so I'm excited to see how those do compared against my tomatoes that I bought as plants.  I also tilled and planted broccoli, beans and peas, all from seeds.  The broccoli seeds I used were from last year, so I planted way more than they recommended (twice to three times as many) and thank goodness because only four sprouted.  The peas and beans are sprouting pretty heavily and looking good so far.  So either peas and beans are way easier to grow or the "don't use old seeds" advice I hear from everyone is true.

I also took on some more container gardening and got in one of each type of pepper (but don't know which is which) in some pepper grow bags and a fairy tale eggplant that I got as a plant from Burpee.  I'll post more on these in a Container Gardening Part 2 post.

Both eggplants were looking rather run down by the time I got them in the ground but with some watering and rain they both bounced back well so here's hoping they flourish.

The picture upload isn't working right, but I don't have time to fiddle with it and want to get some posts out before I leave for vacation, so I can't caption but below are: 1. beans, they sprouted up pretty quickly  2.  bed with broccoli and peas  3. five peppers and a black beauty eggplant  4. my fairy tale container eggplant. 

Fairy Tale Eggplant

What I'm trying in containers this year-part 1

Well, as all my readers know, I haven't had much success at gardening.  Try as I might at the beginning of the season, by the middle of the season all of my stuff is dead due to neglect, drought, pests, or heaven knows what else.  So I started this blog to try to keep myself accountable and keep track of what I may be doing wrong (or right) so I can do better next time.  All of my prior veggie attempts have been in my backyard garden, so this year one new thing I'm trying is mixing it up by adding some container gardening to compare results.  I'm still waiting on a container eggplant, tomato, sweet potatoes, and for my peppers to grow up a bit, but I realized I'm trying so much in pots this year that I should probably split it into two posts.  So this is the colder weather container gardening I'm doing!  I'll do the other plants in a later post.

Spinach, gourmet, and black seeded lettuce.

Lettuce.  I started this window box at the same time as my seedlings a few weeks ago.  The real goal was to have a small continuous growth of lettuce going year round indoors but I quickly found out that indoors the lettuce was taking FOREVER to grow.  So I moved it outdoors and ta daa, instant salads.  It's a mixture of black seeded simpson, gourmet mix, and baby spinach.  Lettuce you should plant every few weeks during the year because the plants go bitter after a few weeks of maturity (just like us!). 

Peas In-A-Pot.  This is probably the thing I'm most excited about right now; here's the latest photo next to my basil plant at a little under 2 months since planting.  I've never tried peas and they seem to be doing super well!  To get these puppies started I filled the bottom of the pot with about an inch of rocks/pebbles so water drains properly, then about half way with extra topsoil I had, and then finished it off with regular potting soil.  As you can see, a few weeks in they're doing wonderful!  Another thing I've seen on pinterest is putting a coffee filter in the bottom so the soil doesn't drain out when you water the plants.

Strawberries.  I tried these last year and they failed horrible after a few super hot days in a stacking plastic container.  So I went out and got a "true" strawberry pot.  To find out the lack of any special planting I did for these see my prior post on strawberries.  We'll see how these suckers do.  If they all die, I'll be happy to do the special layered PVC pipe ridiculousness, but I'm hoping just 'dirt' will do the trick.

Giant pot of onions and carrots.  I've also never tried onions or carrots so I wanted to test these both in the raised bed AND in a container to see the differences and if they were hard.  So far, all is well in both the container and the garden bed.  With the container I just got the biggest container I could find at Home Depot ($25, what a steal!) and did an inner circle of carrots (the little sprigs there) and an outer ring of 1/3 white, 1/3 red, and 1/3 yellow onions.  As you can see the onions are exploding and the carrots are just liiiiiittle itty bitty in comparison but doing well.

Lilies!

 Also, remember those dead sticks I showed you and how suddenly these little sprouts started appearing out of the pot I pulled them from a few weeks later?  Ta daaaa.  Lilies definitely come back, I'm so excited to see them!  And glad they started sprouting before I decided to re-use the pots!

The great thing about container gardening is that you can move the plant if it's not getting enough sun or is getting too much.  You can also move it closer to the water sources if watering is becoming a problem.  I haven't done it yet on my pots but mulch can be used for container plants too to help them retain moisture.  The only tip I have other than putting a layer of rocks in the bottom before the potting soil (it retains water better than normal dirt) is to do some research on the cost of pots before you just go buy them.  I found that Big Lots was more expensive than Lowe's (shocking) and then that Home Depot was far cheaper than Lowe's, which is usually my go to store.  But the important thing is that even if you're in an apartment you can grow just about anything you want.  There are tons of plants that grow well in containers, and many hybrids from specialty seed companies like Burpee (see my peas in a pot) that are made specifically for containers.  Stay tuned for the post on sweet potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and whatever else I said I was going to do in containers :o)