Garden: A List

Lettuce, Spinach, Peas, Beets, and Flowers!  Garden 2011

Yes, finally, Garden 2011 has finally started to take off.  It's been the longest winter/spring I've ever seen in my life, but finally--FINALLY--we've had two days in a row that have hit above...



....

wait for it...

...

60 degrees!

Whew nelly!  We're in the tropics here!

But, it's amazing what magic a little hoop-greenhouse can do for the plants that need temps around 70/80 to get going.  So, without further babbling, I give you my list of garden stuff this year.

In the community garden plot:

Northwest Wildflowers:  

The clear front-runners.  Probably because they're native to the region and are used to all this rain and coolness.

Lettuces/Spinach:

Romaine and Salad Bowl varieties.  At a close second--again, because they are plants that can't grow very well in temperatures above 72 degrees.

Peas:

Dwarf shelling peas.  I picked dwarfs because I didn't want them to get tall enough to shade the rest of my seedlings.  Since peas love it here (again, they like the cool and the wet), my peas the past two years have gotten to be around 5 feet tall--which was a problem in a small community garden plot.  This dwarf variety maxes out at 2.5.

Carrots:

There are only a  few that have come up....  I just don't get it.  I sowed a whole packet in a three by two foot area just to make sure a bunch would come up---but so far I'm looking at maybe 15 carrots total this year.  Weird.

Beets:

Early wonder variety.  Every year I say I won't plant beets (because I don't like them) and every year I still do it.  Mostly because they love the cool weather and so they always make me feel accomplished.  And borscht is okay.

Candy Onion.  So Pretty and Round

Onions:

Woo!  I love growing onions!  I love stir-frying the flower-stem tops.  I love how resilient they are.  I love how huge they get here.  This year's choices were Candy and Walla Walla--both sweet onions.  The Candy's store for longer than the Walla Wallas, but I don't think that will matter much since we're moving.  I'm planning on making a huuuge pot of French Onion Soup when Paul leaves before me (he hates onions).  And since I put my Walla Wallas under the hoop house, maybe all my onions will avoid being stolen this year.  ('Bout made me cry last year--jaunting over to the garden, about to pull 12 beautiful onions for some soup...and finding my garden all bare...)

The candy onions and the row of leeks on the right

Leeks:

New adventure this year.   I absolutely adore leeks and there were some seeds up for grabs in the community shed, so I thought "Heck, why not?"  They're all looking good--I've mixed a few thinned ones from my original row in with my Candy onions--it's a very oniony garden this year.  But, when it doesn't break 60 or have more than 2 dry days in a row till July...that's what you get.

Parsley:

Well, it sure is useful.

Bush beans:

They don't taste as good as pole beans, but I don't have the room for pole beans and bush beans aren't half bad.  We ate so many fresh green beans last year it was awesome!  I finally figured out how to correctly store them in the freezer (Sorry about that one un-blanched batch, Cousin Dave...) and we just finished our last bag.  So, we'll just have a month or so more before they come in again.  Yay!  So good!

It kind of looks like this...

???Mysterious squash/cucumber???

Two days ago, I found a slightly droopy, obviously transplanted mystery squash or cucumber plant in with my spinach!  Who put it there?  Why?  Did they overhear me lamenting to Paul that none of my cucumber seedlings came up and I wanted to get a zucchini plant but didn't have time?  Will we ever know?  I will keep you updated.

Basil:

No seedlings appeared.  Too cold under the hoop house?  I suspect a slug massacre.

Cherry Chocolate Tomatoes

 Tomatoes:

So far so good.  I got two cherry tomato indeterminate varieties from the community Tomato-Rama sale (it's huge here, seriously).  Cherry Chocolates (clever name, huh?) will come out in a dark purplish color--and I've had them before, it was heaven.  Also, a Gold Nugget variety which will be bright yellow.  I like getting different colors and different varieties.  Tomatoes being that bright red is really kind of an arbitrary thing that only recently happened, ya know?

Happy tomatoes under the hoop greenhouse

In the pots on the patio:

Another Tomato!

This one was a determinate variety (means it won't grow to an unlimited size) and will produce some orange cherry tomatoes (hopefully...but it isn't under a hoop house so it's more stressed out).  

Herbs!

Basil (still alive--good sign), Dill (favorite), Cilantro (second favorite), and a Thyme and Rosemary mix box from my friend Holly (okay, they are my favorites too).

There are plots you can rent in Germany, apparently.  They are in these huge complexes outside of the city and are big enough that a lot of people actually build little cabins on the land and stay there on weekends.  I don't think we'll have enough money to get one, though.  So hopefully we can find an apartment with a balcony so I can do some patio gardening at least!  I hope (I hope I hope I hope).  I might die without something to garden.