Just a few quick pics of some of the veggie beds and of harvests made thus far:

Lettuce and peas:

Spinach harvest:

Radishes:

I think the past winter did awesome things for the garden. The previous few never really gave everything a good freeze. This winter with our total accumulation of 6+ feet of snow certainly did it.

For the last several years our Jack-In-The-Pulpit's never bloomed. The first year after we got the Japanese (purple) one, it never came back at all. We were so annoyed that we spent 25$ on it and it didn't even live 1 year we bought a normal one (green). The next year (last year) they both came back, but didn't bloom. But this year they not only came back, but have been in bloom for over 3 weeks at this point:

So I think this is a decent reward for dealing with the horrible winter we had, don't you?

I'm so good at not blogging it's totally amazing, no? So I went the entire month of April w/out a word on here. I've been adding images to the galleries, but that's about it. When you work w/ computers all day, and then all night w/ school, the last thing on my mind is doing more work on the computer. I was out gardening instead. :)

I've begun to harvest some veggies from the garden already. I've harvested spinach, radishes, and lettuce thus far. I'm also attempting to record how much I've harvested. So far I have:

Spinach: 8oz (was about a gallon food storage bags' worth)
Lettuce: 12oz
Raddishes: 12oz (about a dozen so far).

I'll post some pics in the next few posts.

7 of the 8 beds are planted with veggies. I just planted a bed of head type lettuce last weekend in the far back of the yard. That bed gets about 50% shade so I can grow lettuce into the summer months in that bed. I still have one empty bed, also in the very back of the yard. I'll plant spinach in there so I have some in the summer months.

My seedlings are also doing great. So far (knock on wood) I have not had any indoor aphid problems. I only lost one seedling this year so far. I just moved my tomato seedlings out onto the front porch today to begin hardening them off. I plan to put them in the ground about May 15th. The pepper and dill seedlings are doing great too.

I'm going to follow up now w/ some posts of pics and stuff, otherwise this would just be a really long and boring blog entry. So in summary, everything is doing awesome. I have tons of veggies on the way, and I already have more lettuce than I can handle!

I've added a new raised bed to the backyard garden. I'm now at a total of 8 beds, which is going to be my maximum (yeah, right!). I've planted onions (Dutch and Red Bull) to the bed, along with a mystery gift!

Yesterday when I went out to plant the onions, I found a ziplock bag on top of my seed starter tray with seeds and a note within. It read:

"Hakurei Asian Turnip - Very tasty"

I'm not sure who left me this gift, but I planted a row of the turnips in the new bed as well. After some googling I found that these turnips are small, slightly larger than radishes, and mature in about 45 days. Yum!

So thanks secret garden admirer for the gift!

Over the weekend I plated 3 of my 6 veggie beds. I planted:

Bed #1:
- Radishes (Cherry belle, Icicle)
- Swiss Chard (Bright Lights, Fordhook Giant)
- Carrots (Bambino, Nates Coreless)
- Shallots
- Scallons

Bed #2:
- Sugar Snap Peas
- Lettuce (various kinds)

Bed #3:
- Snow Peas
- Chinese Cabbage
- Kohlrabi (Kolibri)

I also filled out my spinach bed w/ a few more seeds.

Up next is building a new bed for onions, and then planting head-types of lettuce in the two rear beds.

My indoor seedlings have begun to sprout:

They are:

Sweat Pea Currant Tomato
White Currant Tomato
Isis Candy Cherry Tomato
Black Cherry Tomato
Little Mama Roma Tomato
Striped Roman Tomato
Taxi Tomato
Red House Tomato
Red Peter Peppers
Autopick Pepper
Tangerine Dream Pepper
Dill Dukat
Dill Boquet

We had record snowfall this winter in Philly. We had over 5 feet of snow total, including two 2ft storms within a week of each other. While I believe it was good for the garden to finally get a good freeze (unlike last winter), it did not do any good to the shed:

We've needed a new shed for a while, but I think now is the time. The roof of the shed collapsed inwards from the weight of the snow. Luckily most things that were in the shed are OK, but I don't know if I'll be able to save my potting bench. Right now it is the only thing holding up what remains of the roof. I'm sure once I move the potting bench the entire shed will collapse. Now I just have to decide what to buy as a replacement.

More photos in the image galleries...

Yesterday was the first day out in the garden. It was a beautiful 73 degrees outside. I started out in the back yard working on the veggie beds. I've cleared out three beds, added some compost from my composter, and planted my peas. I'm growing two 1x4ft rows of peas this year, one sugar snap and one snow pea. I also have spinach that survived the winter and the seeds that I planted during our short January thaw are already sprouting. I have entire 4x4ft bed dedicated to spinach this spring. I can't wait for some fresh spinach salad!

My compost did OK. I started composting for the first time last year. I've been taking the lazy approach. I'm just using plain old black plastic trash cans w/ some air holes drilled in them and have been tossing leaves, plant, and kitchen veggie scraps in there. I haven't even been turning it. I got about 2cubic feet worth of compost. Not bad, but I think I need to start turning it more often to accelerate the process.

I also raked the leaves out of the strawberry bed. However the wild strawberry vine has invaded that bed and it is hard to tell which strawberry plants are which. So I'll just need to let them grow and sort them out later.

Today I'm going to clear out at least two more beds and plant lettuce, radishes, scallions, swiss chard, carrots, kohlrabi, cabbage, and who knows what else.

Today is the start of my annual spring break. I am off from work and school for the next week so I plan to spend as much time as possible in the garden, getting it ready for the spring. I have already started my seedlings indoors last weekend and today I plan to get my peas, lettuce, spinach, radishes, etc in the ground outside.

I'll start posting pics soon and a list of what I'm growing. Stay tuned!

2009 was a great gardening year. While I did stop blogging (I blame schoolwork + normal work) at the end of July, I didn't stop gardening. Blogging is always the last of my priorities. I'd rather be gardening, harvesting, pickling, and eating!

But the rest of the gardening year was a success. I got tons of tomatoes and made nearly a dozen jars of sauce. We still have some in the freezer. I also made more pickles than ever, well over 50 jars. Everyone still loves them, so apparently I can never stop.

Once September rolled around, I made my first attempt on fall planting. I planted broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, and peas. All did well except for the peas - I think I planted them too late in the season. But I harvested 9 heads of cauliflower, 6 heads of broccoli, 8 heads of savoy cabbage, and nearly 3 gallons of lettuce in November. Yum! I still have some cabbage in the fridge!

I finally updated the image gallery with the remaining pictures I had from my garden. Some from August, and I still need to add a few from my final fall harvest. I'll do that real soon now...

But now with the new year begins planning the next veggie garden. I'm still using GrowVeg.com (http://www.growveg.com) for my planning. I'm actually a beta tester of the new version which has some great new features. So be sure to give their tool a try - it's very useful.

This year I plan to concentrate more on successive plantings, I hope to get a spring, summer, and fall harvest. I'm also thinking of recording the number of pounds of food I harvest this year. That won't be easy, and I haven't decided for sure, but it would be interesting to know how much food my garden actually generates.

That's it for now. I have many gardening catalogs to browse through and need to plan out the entire garden. Within a few months I'll begin - with the peas, spinach, and other cold spring crops. I can't wait!