Frosty came to visit

Did you know that Frosty the snowman came to visit us? It was a short visit as it got quite warm (in the 50's) this weekend, so we lost most of our snow, including our snowman friend.

Mom can't wait for spring and summer to come! Not because she hates the snow, she actually loves it as much as I do. But she wants spring and summer because she wants to work in her garden. She is super excited this year because this year she is going to start some seeds indoor! If you recall, mom used to start her own seeds in the pre-Brofur era. It has been 3 years since she last did it and this time, she has a little helper to help out!

These are some of the thing she will be planing this year:

Hugs and slobber,

June

Wordless Wednesday - Garden Style

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Smartphone

Some Harvest

Baby carrots

Basil and parsley in the bowl. Peppers and cucumbers.

1 banana pepper, some jalapeno peppers and italian pepperoncini

I haz sweet potatoes! And corn and more zucchinis and cucumbers

Still picking zukes and cukes

Some new potatoes

Had to pick the corn while they are still small-ish. Birds kept eating them. I do not know that birds will actually peel away the husk to get to the corn!!! I know they have to eat too but sheesh, eat the zucchinis(which I have plenty) and not my corn, damnit!

Pea'd out

I am all pea'd out. I've been picking and eating a lot of peas lately. I have been picking peas almost every other day and thank goodness I think they are almost done. You see, in the previous years I almost never planted enough peas, not even enough to make it out of the garden. So this year I went crazy and planted the entire package of seeds. Now, I have

endless peas. I've given some away and I've freeze some.

This are garlic scapes. Scapes are immature flower stalks from garlics. They should be removed in order to focus all the garlic's energy into bulb growth, that way you get bigger bulbs. But don't throw the scapes away! The scapes are delicious when cooked(or you can eat it raw). They taste just like garlic. You can stir-fry them, steam them, or saute them.

Below are pictures of my garden.

In the far end are peas, some NG Impatiens, 3 types of peppers(Jalapenos, Sweet Banana & Italian Pepperoncini), Marigold and Eggplants. In the front are various tomatoes(Opalka, Yellow Pear, Black Cherry, Betterboy, Beefmaster, Cherokee Purple) with basil and marigold in between.

My Three-Sisters planting: Corn(Sugar Buns), Beans(Chinese Red Noodle) and Squash(Pumpkin & Sweet Dumpling)

Three-sisters planting in the back left. Front left: cukes, zukes and sweet potatoes.

On the right: 4 varieties of Garlics and next to them are my row of herbs and onions.

Another look at the garlics. Behind the garlics are carrots, which you can't see from the picture.

My potatoes: Yukon Gold, Dark Red Norland, Laratte fingerlings and All Blue. In the far right end are some strawberries.

Grow and Meme

We were tagged by our friend Sammie to do this meme. We have done something similar before. The rules are: Open the first photo file folder. Go to the 10th photo. Post and tell the story about that photo. Then tag 5 other bloggers to do this meme.

Ok, we went to our first photo file folder for 2010(because the ones from previous years, you have already seen) and the 10th(we had to include 11th & 12th also) photo is this(below):

Want to take a guess who done it? If you guessed Samantha, you got it right! Samantha, the toy-hog & toy-destroyer, got a purple Wubba for Christmas and she destroyed it in February.

It is Spring and it is planting season. Yay! About 2 weeks ago I went to Lowes and got an inexpensive plastic shelf and some grow lights and made myself a grow-rack.

So far I have got almost everything started except for the cucumbers, zucchinis, pumpkins and winter squash. I'll be starting those in another week or so. Here are what I have started:

• Peppers (Jalapenos, Sweet Banana, Italian Pepperoncini)
• Tomatoes (Cherokee Purple, BetterBoy, Beefmaster, Yellow Pear, Black Cherry, Costoluto Genovese*)
• Herbs (Sweet Basil, Cinnamon Basil, Parsley, Fennel)
• Onions (Red Marble Cipollini, Copra)
• Flowers (Marigold, Carousel Mix Zinnias*, Lilliput Mix Zinnias)
• Asian Greens (Baby Bok Choy, Pai Tsai, Kyona, Napa Cabbage) - These were transplanted outside yesterday
• Cabbage (Couer De Boeuf Des Vertus - a French bull-heart type) - Transplanted outside yesterday

*Got these from Lena from Sleeping Dog Bakery

I've also planted outside the following:

• Snap Peas (Sugar Sprint)
• Lettuce (Mesclun Mix, Grand Rapids, Amish Deer Tongue*)
• Radishes (Sparkler, Watermelon)
• Carrots (Red Cored Chantenay, Purple Haze)

Garden Update

One word to describe this years garden: Dissapointing. :(

This year is not a good year at all for me. My tomatoes have all be ravaged by blight. I'm not the only one. This is the problem this year for most farmers in the northeast.
Fortunately, I still have something in the garden for me to harvest. We have decided that due to the blight problem we should pull our potatoes, that way we at least get the ones that are good. I planted about 2 pounds of potatoes(Yukon Gold and Dark Red Norland) and the picture below shows what I got from it. Not many but at least I got something.

The garlic I planted last Fall did great! I planted German Extra Hardy. They were pulled about 4 weeks ago. We have used a few heads already and they are delicious! Note to self: plant more garlic this Fall.


My cukes and zukes are doing good this year. I had initially started the seeds I purchased but those didn't grow, so I went to the local nursery and bought 1 plant each. These are the zukes and cukes I picked over the weekend. I have picked a few times before this and made an awesome Zucchini Apple Bread this past weekend. Don't worry, I will post the recipe sometime this week or next week.


Also from the garden: cabbages are looking good as well. I haven't harvest any of them yet but should be soon. My purple haze carrots are/were excellent! Sorry no pictures. I really should have taken some pictures of the carrots because they are really cool looking. The outer edge of the carrots are purple but the inside is orange! I gave some to my co-worker and her daughter's first reaction was:"Eeewww...I don't want those moldy carrots". A few days later, she asked her mom to ask me for more "moldy" carrots because they tasted really sweet!
I have also planted some cool weather veggies for the fall: radishes, fennels, napa cabbage and peas.

Since I have no tomato this year, I had to buy them. This weekend we went to a local farmer and bought 1 bushel(roughly 50lbs) of tomatoes for canning. We made mostly tomato sauce and some hot salsa. Out of the tomatoes we got, we made 5 jars (pint size) of salsa and 20 jars (quart size) of tomatoe sauce. I am heading to pick up some more tomatoes for sauce as soon as I finish posting this post.

And lastly, I will leave you with a picture of some sunflowers. Have a great day!

Schedule

How many more days to Spring? How many more days before I can start planting outside? Every day I look at the calander and count the days til I can go outside and do some gardening. Now that most of the snow had melted, I could see my straw-covered garden(certain areas - strawberries section and garlic section). I wanted, so so so badly, to uncover the straw and peek but I know better. So it's back to counting days...

Below is what I have planned for my planting schedule. I hope I'm not too early or not too late.

3/1 - Start indoors: Opalka(Paste Tomato), Jalapeno, Italian Pepperoncini, Eggplant, Shamrock

3/21 - Start indoors: All other tomatoes, Chinese Cabbage, Basil, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Sunflowers

4/18 - Start outdoors: Broccoli, Bok Choy, Carrots, Lettuce, Radish, Onion

5/23 - Start outdoors: Corn - Transplant outdoors: all tomatoes, Chinese Cabbage, Basil, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Sunflowers, Shamrock

6/6 - Start outdoors: Potatoes, Winter Squash - Transplant outdoors: Japaleno, Pepperoncini, Eggplant

I will do a different post about the varieties of vegetable I am planting this year. Please stay tune....

I will leave you with a picture of my snow covered garden and my girls. Have a great weekend!