Quick post, facts only, no pictures. 

One variety of broccoli bolted in the hot spring other didn't.  Did not, however, note the varieties.  Need to do so in the future. 

Swiss chard takes forever to germinate.   More coming up now then there was last week, has been in the ground for 7 weeks now (!).

Same thing for spinach and peas.  I have not given them enough time in the past.  Peas and spinach need to be planted by Valentine's Day here.  Make sure you do this every year.

Ok, first of all, this once a week garden journaling thing isn't working . I need to post more often than this for the journal to be valuable.  To encourage that, I am going to start posting simple gps tracks and descriptions of all my rides.  This will be fun for me to look at later as well and it will force me to do this more often. 

The garden is doing well.  The front garden remains my challenge- quite weedy.  My plan is to wait about two more weeks for the good stuff to get established and then spend money on starts to fill in the holes.  I will then weed as well as I can and then mulch everything heavily.

Here's some interesting photos (to me) from the front garden:

This is the full length of the garden- the frost blanket is from the frost in the last picture.  From right to left:
Azalea, hostas, flame azalea, more hostas, butterfly bush, ground cover, azalea, decorative  grass, a bush of some kind.  There's some day lilies and ground covers littered throughout.  It's all actually quite pretty.

This is a ground cover I like a lot.  Really bright blue flowers- the photo was taken at dusk, sorry about the flash-out.

Close up of the flame azalea, that bush is COVERED now, looks really good.

Here's the elephant ears that were frost damaged from the last post- they came back really strong. 


Now, the vegetable garden.  It's rocking  for this time of year.  One thing that has gone wrong-ish is that it's been so warm, my broccoli started to bolt already, I had to cut it back.  No pictures.  I also have lettuce, arugula, and spinach to eat.



This photo shows lettuce, arugula, spinach, peas, and onions.  I'm very pleased with this little spring bed.

Onions and "walls of water."  Linda and Bill, I think, gave me these years ago and I still use them to protect early-planted tender veggies, they work really well but have lots of holes,  I need to order some new ones.
Inside the walls of water are...

Jalapenos.  Every year, my tomatoes are peaking and my hot peppers are barely started.  I'm going to try and fix this by giving these about a 3 week head start on the tomatoes.  In the past, I've used these walls to get earlier tomatoes.  I am interested to see how this works. 

Alright, that's all the blogging for now.  Time to eat some breakfast!

Second post- front flower garden. Positives and Negatives

I have started a cottage/border garden combination in the front.  It is mostly perennials and big things, so this is planned for a few years (I hope).  First, though- here's some pictures of the new puppy, Macy! 

CLICKING ON PICTURES ALWAYS MAKES THEM BIGGER!  Just click on the black space next to the big picture to go back to the blog.

Okay, now for the front garden.  I'm going to start with a mistake made and lesson learned. 



These are hostas and a hydrangea that I covered today for frost tonight.  It has been a very warm spring and these plants may have been tricked.  The hostas, in particular, are pretty big already.  Here are some elephant ears I also covered more heavily today.

All of these plants were either not covered (hostas, hydrangea) or covered very lightly (elephant ears).  There was a light frost last night and they all have light cases of frost burn and/or "droopy."  If they are ever this big at a frost again, I need to cover them as pictured. The hyrdrangea leaves are about 3" in diamter.  The elephant ears are no more than 1-2" tall. 

Now for some more positive pictures of the front garden. 

Picture is of the "cottage garden" from the house looking at the road.  The teepee trellis is made from rebar.  The front right corner is the hydrangea.  There were two more of the pine trees and one more grass.  I cut the trees down and moved one of the grasses.   Front left is the mailbox with iris, daffodils around it.  Yarrows is in front left corner, then along the road is the aforementioned mailbox, then some echinicea (can't see), then the irises and some day lilies.  There's big hole I want to fill in with something round leaves and flowering.  Behind the pine tree is a big bed of day lilies.

From the pine tree in is a nice rose-of-sharon, then a peony bush slightly closer, then the tepee.  On either side of the grass are two great elephant ears and between the grass and the mailbox is a patch of calla lilies, gladiolus, echnicea, and some round leaved things. 

The bright green bush is a shrub thats turns deep red in the fall and has nice bark in the winter.  Bee balm , butterfly weed, and black-eyed susans occupy the near left corner.  The orange-red splash is a nice spring flower I don't know the name of; the lamb's ear has tripled in size since last year.  The open space next to the lamb's ear is actually cosmos, with garden phlox (the tall kind) between the rose of sharon and the hydrangea.

Whew!

Here's some cool pictures of the above space.

Close up of iris.

Unknown orange-red flower.

Echinicea, calla lilies, gladiolus.
It's 10:30pm.  The next post will be a short one picturing the front border bed along the house.

Warm spring garden start! long first post....

This first post outlines my vegetable garden status as of 4/4/12.  Excuse any issues with the post and/or photos; this is my first real attempt at blogging and it's a brand new camera for me:

Here's a shot of my main veggie garden from the carport.  Use the fence as reference for depth, each section is about 12 feet. 

This is the fence line veggie bed from the deck...

. 

and from ground level.  The fence line bed will be cukes and beans this year, cukes growing up wood trellis, probably add one more of same.  I dug a crimson clover cover crop (accidental alliteration!) in about 3 weeks ago.

This is garlic planted in November.  The wood box is made from scrap wood from an old dog house and is an expirement.  I am trying to compare productivity on a contained raised bed to the rest of my in-ground double dug beds.  I am very pleased with this garlic.

First bed closest to carport, planted about 3-4 weeks ago.  Bigger plants are broccoli, doing great.  There was a slug problem and I spread cuttings of an abrasive decorative grass underneath- this worked a charm, no more slugs.  Smaller starts are rainbow swiss chard. 

New rock path, have several of these between raised beds, all rocks are harvested from beds dug.  This is another project I am pleased with.

Red onions, in ground as sets about 5 weeks ago.

This bed is planted in Yukon Gold potatoes, about 2 weeks ago.  I expect a solid 20 pound or more harvest, potatoes thrive here.

Lettuce bed.  The front 1/4 was planted in arugala from Lowe's that did not grow well and had very few seeds in the packet..  Buy seeds from Southern States or Jesse Israel, not Lowe's. 

Closer up of productive part of lettuce bed. It's a heavily planted mix of older seed packets, this worked well.

Overhead of spring variety bed- this is closest to the shed.  All planted about 5 weeks ago.  Peas on trellis, made trellis from scraps and found in woods behind house chain, works great. More red onions under mulch, spinach in front corner actually planted about 7 weeks ago. 

It's a pretty good looking mini-spinach bed, I've had two great salads from thinning it already, also pleased with this. 

These two beds are newly planted strawberry beds.  They are double dug with very heavy store bought compost application.  Each hill should be about 4 plants in the bigger bed and 3 in the smaller.  I expect little production this year but lots next.  Pretty excited about planning long-term projects like this. 

That's it for the first post!  Hope it's not too boring and somewhat meaningful when I look at it later.

A foolish beginning...

No fooling, I'm going to try and start a garden log.  The point is to keep track of things as they grow and what happens to them.  Look for lots of photos of plants, young and old, commentary on plant performance, pest and diesase photos/follow-up, and really everything you're supposed to have in a garden journal.  I may even scan in some simple garden diagrams...we'll see.  The next posts will be the for realz one's....