Spring Vegetables

One of my goals for this year's garden was to make sure I plant things in time for a Spring garden. Last year, the raised bed was newly built in the beginning of June, which was only early enough to plant summer vegetables: heat-loving tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and tomatillos. I also got in some radishes, beets, carrots, and green onions. And I was really happy with the results: I had enough tomatoes to eat, supply my co-workers, and can over 40 jars of salsa and marinara sauce. I am STILL sick of cucumbers. But, I didn't harvest much of anything until August, when the hot-weather crops really started producing.

This year, I was anxious to get gardening as soon as possible! Early on, I had tomato transplants waiting in the wings; I read gardening books; I laid out garden plans while it was still snowy and cold outside. And now, while my summer garden is just starting to really take off with nice daily growth, blossoms and baby fruits, my spring garden is in peak production/harvest mode. Neat!!

Here are a few pictures of my spring harvests:

Radishes

Garden Peas

Green Onions

Baby tomatoes

There are baby fruits on my tomato plants!

Tomato baby, June 19

Radishes

I love radishes - they are so quick and easy to grow, and so good as snacks or in salads! I've harvested about 2 succession crops of radishes from my garden so far.

Radishes Growing, June 11

Here's yesterday's harvest:

Radish Harvest, June 19

Park's Whopper

Park's Whopper is currently my biggest tomato plant. It is also a container plant. The pot is 6.5 gallons, the largest size I have - but I am still a little concerned that it will not be big enough. The plant has, at least, doubled in size in the past 10 days.

Park's Whopper, June 5

Park's Whopper, June 16

Flowers on Park's Whopper, June 16

Tomatillos

This year I've planted 2 tomatillo plants together in a big (6.25 gallon) pot with a trellis. They seem to be doing pretty well so far! They have flowers already and they're getting pretty bushy. The trellis seems to be working a bit better than the stakes I used last year. The young tomatillo plants have REALLY fragile main steps, and last year the wind whipped one of my plants away from its stake, breaking its stem where I had tied it. This year, the branches and leaves are holding the plants to the trellis without much tying. Now that the main stems are thicker, I think they'll stay put.

Tomatillo Plants, June 12

Tomatillo Flower, June 12

Tomatillo Plants, June 16

Last year I had no tomatillo flowers until the beginning of July... so I am excited for a possible early harvest this season!

Garden update

Photos of my mid-June garden:

Tomatoes, radishes, greens - June 5

Glads and marigolds up front, veggies in raised bed, James working on the landscaping project in the background - June 12

Peas, green beans, radishes, peppers - June 12

Garden Peas Update: Loaded with peapods!

Can't wait to harvest the first garden peas of the season!

Pea plant loaded up with peapods, June 16

Cabbage Worm

I have 3 collard plants in my garden. 2 of them have been decimated by the cabbage worm. The cabbage worm is a tiny little caterpillar with an AMAZING appetite. Case study:

Collard Plant 1: Healthy

Collard Plant 2: Eaten by Cabbage Worm

Devastating! I even spied a worm in action on my plant. He is camoflaged, but if you look closely you can see him in this picture:

Cabbage Worm on Collard Plant

Apparently, an organic remedy is available to take care of this problem. It's a bacteria called "bacillus thuringiensis", or BT. Benign to humans, pollinators, and beneficial insects ... but deadly to these little worms. A bottle of this product is on its way to me currently, to take care of this problem ...

Valley Girl Tomato

I have a potted Valley Girl tomato that I am growing in a 5-gallon pot on my front steps. Just wanted to show how it's been doing over the past few weeks (this post is mostly for my mum, who raised Valley Girl seedlings out in MA and gave me one of the plants when she came to visit in May).

May 21 (Valley Girl on far right)

May 28

June 5

June 13 (Valley Girl up front, Orange Blossom to its right)

Garden Peas

So far, I have harvested radishes, green onions, and lettuce - but I am also trying a new vegetable for the first time this year: garden peas. And they are a Spring crop: almost ready to start harvesting!


Just wanted to show a few pictures of my pea plants from the season so far:

May 21

June 11 (they have flowers!)

At this point, they've sprouted little baby pea pods ... more on that later.

Additionally, you may have noticed a dramatic difference in the background of the pictures (weeds on May 21, gravel path on June 11) . We've just finished a big landscaping project which will be the subject of an upcoming post!