My Garden, the Second Week in May

The spaghetti squash is looking good.

The blueberry bush may not have a lot of leaves,

but it has a ridiculous amount of blueberries growing.

I planted these chive seeds last year and nothing.
This year they appeared all on their own.

This is why I'm no longer weeding my garden.

I have a lettuce, carrots and possibly tomato plants appearing mysteriously.

My corn is just so pretty. It makes me smile.

Birds? Someone pulled out a few of the smaller stalks.

I've started some more corn seeds.

The leaves on my strawberry plant are three times bigger than last year.

This is the first strawberry I spotted. There are many, many more to come.

I am incapable of properly pruning my dwarf pear tree.

I tried last year after reading and researching how.

It didn't work. It's super extra big and bushy now.

I wonder if the squirrels will steal all my pears again this year.

I picked up a raspberry and blackberry bush on clearance.

They looked very sad. I never got around top planting them in the fall.

They stayed inside. Leaves grew. They were happy.

Then they got infected with some little wormy things.

Yuck. I put them outside. The bugs died and so did the plants.

They started coming back and it was warmish, so I planted them in the yard.

Then it got extra cold and they died again. These poor plants.

But hurray! The blackberry leaves have emerged.

The raspberry, not yet, but I have faith.

A Week of Rain Isn't So Bad

All my seedlings were outside for about a month now still in their cups and egg cartons. Probably not the best idea, since a big chunk of them didn't survive.

But amidst the survivors were these Long Bearer Tomato seeds that never worked before but magically sprouted in my ziplock bags. I really thought there were defunct. They've been growing nicely with the rain.

The majority of corn has taken nicely. The rest, not so much, but I had replacements in the waiting that are now planted. The joy of not removing plants that have bolted is that you get things that appear on their own, such as the carrot below. We also have random lettuce and arugula all over the place.

I didn't realize the strawberry plants would come back to life on their own, yet here they are. They've almost tripled in size with the week of rain.

I just took this picture. My haphazard garden with uneven beds. The one center front was suppose to be for lettuce and spinach. It's still just a mound. My daughter thinks it's her plot. She digs and rakes it. She splashes around in the bins of water.


I've decided to build shallow planters for the salad greens and allow her to keep this as her plot. My daughter has gotten weird about veggies. She told me the other day that she no longer likes peas...information based on absolutely nothing other than a whim. I found this knowledge a little disconcerting since I planted a boat load of peas just for her.

So my thought tonight as I sat in front of my garden while my dog ran around barking at the night, is that maybe if I let her pick things to plant, things that she'd be responsible for, plants she could pick that I would tell her, if she grows it she has to eat it, that maybe we can get over that anti-vegetable phase.

With my luck she'll tell me, "No thank you," and decide to keep to a mound of dirt.

Container Gardening Potatoes?

Well, not exactly. But have you seen this Seattle Times article, "It's Not Idaho, but You Can Still Grow Potatoes."

Apparently, with a couple of pieces of lumber, some seed potatoes and a careful eye for watering, you can grow 100 pounds of potatoes in a 4 square foot box. Obviously, something a little more rot resistant would be a good idea if you wanted to do this for years to come. But, I'd say if you were trying this for the first time, why not use wood from pallets. Free and abundant on Craigslist.

Anyway, the end of the article mentions using a container or stacks of tires, but it won't be as easy to harvest potatoes from the bottom. Plus...my yard is still looking a little crazy since all the renovation last year. I don't think a stack of tires is going to help at all aesthetically.

"Free" Grocery Store Seeds?

I've said for many years, that I don't understand why I can't grow potatoes and what not plants and seeds from the grocery store. I know, I know...hybrids, disease, blah blah. All the people that tell me that haven't actually tried it. And I haven't tried it because I've obviously been swayed by the naysayers.

Then I read this over at A Better Home & Garden.

I think I'm going to try it...maybe this year, definitely next. Although, I'll probably go somewhere that I can buy local, organically grown stuff.