Garden progress in pictures

 I've very little time for blogging today, but I wanted to post an update on how my garden's coming along. Here are some photos I took over the last several days. xx

Early May in my garden

We're still in the sweet spot, garden-wise, at this point in the year. Everything is growing and thriving, and the heat, bugs, diseases, and general malaise of high summer still seem far away. 

Here are a few pictures from my garden as of this afternoon. I'll start with my current obsession: my baby Eustacia Vye rose! Her first bloom is beginning to open, and I'm in love.

There are nine more flower buds now, too.  It's hard to believe this rose was planted as a bare root at the end of March. 

In other good (but somewhat less exciting) garden updates, here are a few more photos of things I'm growing, all taken this afternoon:

The five blueberry bushes are still fairly small but loaded with berries. The plant growth on all five has been very slow, but this year I've finally started fertilizing on a regular basis. I'm hoping they'll start to take off as a result. As it is, we'll probably get three or four cups of blueberries at the most....and that's if we feel like fighting with the birds and squirrels for them. (Probably not). At least the plants seem healthy, though!

Poppy is a great garden companion. She walks with me while I inspect everything, the tomatoes, peppers, beans, corn...

See the nest box in this next picture? There's currently a bluebird family taking up residence! Mom and Dad work tirelessly all day long bringing food to the babies, and it's a real joy to watch. The current brood are just about ready to fledge. 

After a very late start, my lettuce is finally starting to look like....lettuce! Haha. The carrots planted beside it are finally sprouting but they're not worth taking a picture of yet. Next year I need to get on the ball much, much, much sooner with the lettuce and carrots.

We built a tripod for the cucumbers to climb. They're looking good right now, too.

And finally, the corn. 

The 2025 garden

The vegetable garden is finally all planted! This year I have more things planted in it than ever before, and it's a combination of the older raised bed, a new raised bed, and several containers, including a small plastic kiddie pool where I'm growing Bibb lettuce and baby carrots. As an experiment, we're even growing a little bit of corn! Gregg's been pestering me to try growing corn for a while now, ever since he found out a friend of his grows a few small patches of it in his backyard garden and has success. After homegrown tomatoes, sweet corn is his favorite summer garden treat. When we saw some 6-packs of corn seedlings ("Peaches and Cream" variety) at Lowe's the other day, I thought what the heck. They were $5.99 and Gregg was excited by the idea. Since it was an impulse buy we hadn't planned where to put it, though. Our solution made me laugh: we used the large empty spaces on either side of my new rose! *

Anyway, here's the list of what's growing in my garden this year:

Tomatoes:

Nine heirlooms started from seed: 3 Eva Purple Ball, 3 Hillbilly Potato Leaf, 2 Berkeley Tie Dye, 1 Mexico Midget Cherry.

Five hybrid determinates bought as seedlings: 1 Heatmaster, 2 Bush Goliath, 1 Better Bush, 1 Roma.

Peppers:

One each of Serrano, Jalapeno, Mammoth Jalapeno, Tabasco, Cowhorn, Giant Marconi, and Sheepnose Pimento.

Cucumbers: two Boston Pickling and one Armenian, all planted in large containers.  

Also:

Rattlesnake beans (thanks Mary!), Yellow Crookneck squash, Aunt Mae's Bibb lettuce, and Paris Market carrots. Peaches and Cream corn. 

I mixed together three different varieties/packets of marigold seeds and planted them down the center of the two raised beds to go along with the Marietta marigolds that have reseeded themselves from last year. I like using a living mulch of marigolds around my tomatoes to deter pests and attract pollinators. I've got parsley and basil started from seed that's close to ready to put in the ground, too. 

Here's a few pictures of the garden along with a chart I drew to keep the placement of everything straight. 

* We made a bed for Eustacia Vye that will be big enough to accommodate her plus two more English shrub roses next year. I haven't even seen the first flower yet and I'm already obsessing over what the next two roses will be. I can see how the madness begins!

She's leafing out! 

Garden progress

My garden is coming along nicely. Two or three days of cool, rainy weather have done it more good than two weeks' worth of watering from the hose. There's just something special about rainwater!

My "living mulch" of marigolds is finally amounting to something:

"Marietta" is the variety name.

"Hillbilly Potato Leaf" will be the first slicing tomatoes we taste this year (probably). The plants are growing like gangbusters.

First fruit set honors go to the cherries, of course. Here are some tiny green "Mexican Midgets". I'm looking forward to having these in salads.

The cucumbers are coming along.

Four pepper plants are growing among the handful of carrots that managed to sprout. I never seem to have much luck with carrots.

Now that I'm finally harvesting lettuce, I made spots to plant two more peppers (both Datils) in the middle of the patch. The lettuce is a little late producing this year, but it's tender and delicious!

Under the weather, but happy

I've been home sick for the past two days. There seems to be some kind of stomach bug/cold/virus thing going around and lucky me, I caught it. I'm actually feeling much better today but given how upset my stomach was all day yesterday, I dared not go back to work yet. I barely made it to the bathroom in time a couple of times, and had I been at work it might have led to some terrible embarrassment.

I've been doing some of my work from home, though. Yesterday one of the assistant principals emailed me and said, "I hope you feel better..........STOP WORKING FROM HOME!" Haha. Had we been talking in person I would have told her that now that our evil principal has been fired, I don't mind keeping my work caught up from home. The guy they sent from the district office to get us through the rest of the month (as the interim principal) is beloved by the staff and students, and I don't mind the way I would have with the wicked witch! I wouldn't have lifted a finger from home for her. What a relief that she's gone; even though I won't be there next year I'm happy that the staff will no longer have to suffer under her. 

Next week I'll be spending a morning at my new school, training with the outgoing secretary. She's retiring after many years in the position, and she's told me through email how much I'm going to love it there! Everyone has been so very kind and encouraging and welcoming already, and I don't even officially start for two months! This may end up being the school I stay at until I retire, with any luck. I'm happy.

Speaking of happy and good news, I decided to weigh myself yesterday and check in on how my diet is going. I've lost 23 pounds since January! Slowly but surely, I'm getting there. By the time I start the new job in July I'll have to have some new clothes. Everything is starting to get loose on me, especially pants. I certainly won't complain about needing new clothes!

Now, as promised, here are some garden pictures. Have a great weekend, everyone!

The marigolds, tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers in the main bed are starting to grow!

My "Marvel of the Four Seasons" lettuce is looking good right now. 

This is the bed in front of the porch, where I've planted two cherry tomatoes and three pepper plants. Zinnias from last year are resprouting in there, too!

You can't tell in this picture, but our young fig tree is almost shoulder high. Still no sign of a fig yet, though.

The bananas on the side of the porch are growing like mad.

For the first time in all the years I've had it, it looks as if the pomegranate tree is going to produce fruit this year! It's taller than the roof and absolutely loaded with flowers and developing poms. Fingers crossed!

Starting a garden

I'm so excited! Yesterday I planted my first little garden at this house. It doesn't look like much at the moment, but I have high hopes.

I prepared the bed around the back porch on Friday by hoeing and digging out all of the grass and weeds. I texted my husband halfway through that task and said, "Hoeing is HARD WORK" to which he replied, "So I've heard.......!" Hahaha. All joking aside, though, it really was hard work for someone like me who's unaccustomed to such labor and out of shape to boot. I have three blisters on my hands to prove it. 

That afternoon, once I'd showered and cleaned up, I went out to Lowe's and bought seedlings. Their selection was somewhat small, but I got five indeterminate tomato plants, all heirlooms, and three determinates, all hybrids. The indeterminates:  Mr. Stripey, German Queen, San Marzano, Red Beefsteak, and Pink Brandywine. The determinates: two Celebrity seedlings and one Bonnie's Centennial. 

In addition to the tomatoes, I picked up a 6 pack of small jalapeno plants, and two little containers with 5 cucumber seedlings in them. I separated the cucumbers so I'll eventually have five separate plants. They have to grow some before I plant them, since they barely have true leaves at this point. I also bought some marigold plants and two little pots of Italian flat leaf parsley which you can see in the foreground of the photo. I also picked up some extra marigold and nasturtium seeds to sow to fill out the empty spaces some. I want the beds to be pretty as well as productive!

I did all the work of actually planting yesterday morning. All of that bending, kneeling, digging, and crawling around has left me sore today (especially in the legs). It seems to have been a really good workout! Hopefully I'll strengthen up some this summer as I work to maintain everything.

My garden bed extends around the corner of the porch into an L shape. Five of the jalapenos are planted around the corner, and further along, I set out the banana plants that overwintered on the back porch in pots.

The pomegranate tree (the lower half of it) is visible at the end of the bed, by the windows. Maybe this year we'll get a few pomegranates. I dare not hope for bananas, but that would be nice! My fig tree is doing well, too, but it will probably be another year or two before we get any figs. Patience is a big part of gardening.

 I hope my garden can grow and expand in the coming years, and one of these days I'm going to build nice raised beds out in the yard. Another ongoing homeowner process, but one that I think I'll enjoy more than most!