Frost

Saturday, March 6th will be 10 weeks before last frost!  I have lots of seeds to start and hope to fill up the rest of the heated Jiffy greenhouse.

Seeds Planted

I started some seeds this month.  I first started some seeds in seed starting soil and left them in front of a window.  After checking on them a few times, they seemed cold and I relocated them to the top of the refrigerator.

This is a list of seeds that are now on top of the fridge:

2/17- Echinacia, Purple Cone Flower, Burpee - Fridge
2/22- Lavender, Lavanda Lady, Burpee - Fridge
2/22- Lavender, Munstead, Lawn & Garden - Fridge
2/17- Onion, White Lisbon Bunching, American Seed - Fridge

I decided to go out and purchase two of  the Jiffy Heated Professional Greenhouse's which come with a heating mat to help keep the soil warm.  Below is a list of seeds I planted in the first greenhouse:

2/26- Broccoli, Calabrese, American Seed - HPG
2/26- Echinacia, Purple Cone Flower, Burpee - HPG
2/26- Eggplant, Black Beauty, Thompson & Morgan - HPG
2/26- Lavender, Lavanda Lady, Burpee - HPG
2/26- Lavender, Munstead, Lawn & Garden - HPG
2/26- Onion, Evergreen Long White Bunching, Burpee - HPG
2/26- Onion, Sweet Spanish Yellow Utah Jumbo, Ferry-Morse - HPG
2/26- Spinach, Bloomsdale Long-Standing, Burpee - HPG

Here is what I have planted in the second greenhouse:

2/27- Lettuce, Parris Island Cos (Romaine), Ferry & Morse- HPG
2/27- Lettuce, Mesclun Mix, Lake Valley Organics- HPG
2/27- Peas, Progress No. 9, Agway- HPG
2/27- Pepper, Sweet Banana, American Seed- HPG
2/27- Tomato, Legend F1 - Determinate, eBay- HPG
2/27- Tomato, Matt's Wild Cherry - Indeterminate, eBay- HPG
2/27- Tomato, Red Siberian - Indeterminate, Botanical Interests- HPG
2/27- Tomato, Silvery Fir Tree - Determinate, Botanical Interests- HPG
2/27- Tomato, Sweetie Seedless - Indeterminate, eBay- HPG

The Legend F1 is a blight resistant tomato, after last year, this is a must in the garden!  Each of the greenhouses has 72 plugs and greenhouse #2 is only halfway filled.

July 5th

Here are some views from around the garden. Click on the photos for larger views.

Zucchini (I made bread with this on the 6th! YUM!)

Watermelon plants with a flower. This is the second flower I have seen so far.

Strawberries are still flowering, no red fruit yet though.

Yellow Squash

Loose leaf lettuce

Jason & I have been seeing some bees around the garden early this year. I am having a hard time hand pollinating the cucumbers, so I am hoping that they are doing a good job!

Mary Washington Asparagus that I am growing from seed.

Fourth of July

Happy Independence Day!

Today I enjoyed a summer squash mixed in with my pasta for lunch! I do have some zucchini that is almost ready to pick, so I may make bread this week.

I lost over half of my tomatoes to late blight, I think that it may have come from the one tomato plant that I bought at Home Depot, a mistake I will never make again. We bought some flowers to plant in those pots to attract bees to pollinate our squash and cucumbers. We picked up some Antigua Yellow Marigolds, Vintage White Stock, Blue Danube Ageratum and Figaro Mix Dahlias.

I also re potted my winter squash and started some more lettuce and snap peas for the fall.

Hope everyone's garden is doing better than mine!

June 30th Update

Click on the photos for a larger view.

We do have quite a few tomatoes growing, lot of varieties and because I am so lazy, none of them are labeled. So, we should have some nice surprises this year!

Here is one of the few strawberries that I have growing right now, not sure what kind of strawberry grows this late. This plant was given to me last year and was half dead with no identity... so another surprise as to what type it is!

Here is my first yellow squash of the season. I think I will save this for squash bread, if I am motivated, I will make that tomorrow night.

The beautiful squash blossoms, they look very Hawaiian.

This is a group of Montgomery False Spirea (Astible japonica 'Montgomery') that borders my swamp.

We are trying peppers again this year, this is a sweet bell pepper.

Dilly Beans & such

So, we bought a water bath canner this year. Jason wanted dilly beans and I want spaghetti sauce & we both want pickles. We took a ride down to Carmody Farm Stand and bought some green beans and I took out my book, The Busy Person's Guide to Preserving Food (which I believe is now out of print.), and found a recipe for dilly beans and we went to work. Jason ended up going back out to the store because we needed pickling salt, who knew? Anyway, the canning went slowly, but I did check the seals today and they all sealed properly, so it was worth the effort. Hopefully, they will taste good too!

While I was separating the tomatoes to try to clear up the early blight that nicely showed up, Jason found this guy, luckily before he ran him over with the lawn mower. Never a dull moment!

We took a ride over to Wild Carrot Farm and picked up some Native Strawberries (if I can get Kelso to leave the seeds alone, I will try to save them.), lavender, dill, and a black cherry tomato. If you are in their area, they do sell Organic Seeds from Seeds of Change.

Broccoli

I started some Broccoli seeds for the fall. Now that they are growing, I have to figure out where the heck I am going to put them! A friend of mine has agreed to take half for her garden, so I really just need room for 6 of them.

I have been picking a few peas and beans this past week! I have also been busy pollinating some squash and cucumbers, and I am really looking forward to eating those. The tomatoes and peppers seem to hate the weather we have been having in Connecticut lately. I have flowers, but no tomatoes as of yet. My project for today is to move them around and create more space between each plant.

This weekend, I am hoping to teach myself to can. There is a farmers market in Berlin tomorrow, and I am hoping to pick up some green beans to make Dilly Beans. YUM!