Garden Spring 2013

Last year, my garden didn't do as well as in years past. I think it was many things, but the biggest was the early brutal heat. This year, my niece, fenced my garden off for me, to keep the cat and dogs out. It's pretty awesome. I have a small area but I plant a lot of things. Above is an overview of what it looked like 3 days ago. Everything is suddenly really taking off. It seems to be loving this Spring weather.

I planted mostly from seed this year. That was always hard with the animals. When the delicate seedlings came up, they would eat them, walk on them, roll on them. It's definately a slower start doing it almost completely from seed.

Here is my lettuce patch. Behind in the ground, you can see the top of my giant swiss chard. I planted that in the fall. It's going crazy now and needs to be eaten. Next to the lettuce is a basil, cilantro and a few carrots. I pulled out all the radishes right before this photo was taken. I just planted some cucumber seeds where the radishes were.

This is the plum tree my niece planted for me. I like it, but it doesn't look like we will get any plums this year.

I am trying potatoes for the first time. I got some organic seed potatoes from Maine. I didn't have much room, so they are planted in these two containers. As they grow, you add more dirt, or mound it, so that there is more room for more potatoes under ground.

Chard again. In front of the chard, I planted some aspargus in rows. They won't produce anything this year. They are a long term investment though. They should produce for about 20 years. I have never grown them either. ig you look closely in the front of the chard, you can see the aspargus just sending up some shoots. Behind, in the bed, is some of my many kinds of tomatoes.

Lettuce and carrots again. An eggplant, behind the lettuce.

Several kinds of tomatoes. And a tomatillo.

I have 3 kinds of peppers, Ancho, Bell and Pepperocini.

I am trying a little bit of corn again. I don't really have enough room to do much with corn, but I love it even when I get a little. This variety was designed for patio's, containers and small spaces. I also have some Okra and zucchini coming up around the corn.

I have some peas and sweet peas (flowers) growing up together. Not a lot of peas, but very tasty. They get eaten standing in the backyard. They never make it in the house. In front of the peas are some onions.

 I have one pot of flowers. I also have some nasturtiums and sweet peas scattered in among the veggies.

For some reason my niece planted an entire forest of parsley. I also have some spring chard and a little bit of spinach, beets, black eyed peas, dill and summer squash.

A lot in a small space!!