Monday, April 11, 2011

The Garden Is Started!

The radishes are getting ready to harvest. This morning I pulled five nice size radishes up to add to a salad for our dinner tonight . The beets are growing. I used the hoe and pulled some dirt up around the beet plants. I'm hoping for enough beets to put some in jars for William. But I've decided that I like beets too. I didn't think they were good but I've been eating some recently and they're good. Beets are low in carbs and calories. All the squash are up now. I hoed around them this morning. I will need to put some more rabbit manure around them in about a week or maybe some manure tea. I checked the tomato plants that William and I set out Saturday afternoon. They are looking good. Some of them look like they've grown two inches already. Tomatoes....fruits no words can describe. To describe tomatoes as delicious leaves so much unsaid. LOL Can you tell that I love eating tomatoes? This morning I planted green beans (Louisiana Purple Pod) in a raised bed that's 4' x 20'. I planted four rows of beans so that's eighty feet of green beans. That should be enough to can some beans and freeze some too. We have soaker hoses now that we are going to put around the green beans and the tomatoes. The hoses will make keeping the plants watered a lot easier than trying to water them from overhead. After I finished planting the green beans (and resting for a few minutes) I planted twelve hills of cucumbers. There's six hills of burpless cukes and six hills of pickling cucumbers. Cucumbers rate almost as highly as tomatoes with me. Lastly, I planted four hills of zucchini. They're planted in the flower bed in the front yard. William made a new bed with mown leaves, rabbit manure and peat moss along with the dirt that is mostly clay. I'm hoping that this new bed will produce a lot of zukes this year. There's room in the newly worked area to plant some more tomatoes. I'm planning to put the Marianna's Conflict there. I want to save some of the seed of these tomatoes so if planted in the front they will be away from the other tomatoes and won't cross pollinate. Rain is expected late this afternoon . That should be a good thing for the newly planted seeds and on the already established plants. I'm feeling good that the vegetables are now in the ground and that we should be enjoying them in a couple of months. We still need to get some pepper plants....Jalapena, Sweet Pepper, Cayenne and Sweet Banana peppers are what we usually plant. Okra will be the next vegetable I'll plant. I have a 4' x 16' bed that I'm planning to put the okra in. I may plant a couple rows across the bed and then in front set out some eggplants. After we get the raised beds going we need to till an area to plant the sweet potatoes and Asparagus beans. These beds will be about ten feet by ten feet each. I love spring time!!!!!

2 comments:

  1. You're gonna be really busy this year canning all the goodies from your garden. I've never heard of Louisiana Purple Pod beans. Are they a pole bean or a bush bean?

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  2. The LPP is a pole bean. This is the bean most gardeners in my area plant each year.

    I sure hope I stay very busy canning and freezing vegetables this summer. :)

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