I'm finally done my class (yea!) and I am off from school until September. I was able to get a lot of needed work done in the vegetable garden this weekend. I took some pictures as well so check out the image galleries. Here's the bed-by-bed play...

Potato bed: Potatoes are doing very well. I'm not going to add any more dirt because otherwise it will start flowing out of the bed. The plants have started to fall over, so I've made a make-shift fence out of bamboo stakes and twine just to keep them off of the ground a bit. I probably need to get a real fence of sorts, but in time. Also there are a lot of ants in that bed and I'm wondering if that is going to be a problem. I'll need to do some research to see how to get rid of them - or if they will do any damage to the potatoes.

Salad bed: I've got lots of snow peas! They are producing a lot and they are very sweet. I've pulled out the bolting baby spinach and have replanted them. The lettuce is doing OK but is starting to bolt as well, so I'll need to pick and replant that in the next several days. Carrots look to be doing well, as do the shallots.

Bean bed: I did a lot of weeding in this bed - it really needed it. I'm also trying some more bean seeds one more time. I dunno what is wrong but the beans won't sprout right this year. Usually they are the easiest thing to grow, but this is my 4th re-planting of the beans and I may be at about 65% germination rate. We'll see. The cabbage is doing well too - the heads are just starting to form. Hopefully they will be ready in a few weeks.

Tomato bed: The tomatoes are getting huge. I have added the 2nd level of tomato cages and have tied all of them up. I still have lots of flowers and have lots of little black cherry tomatoes starting and a few roma are starting as well. The tomatillos are starting to get fruit too - but have been getting attacked by bugs relentlessly. First it was aphids, now something else is eating them. I need more hot-pepper wax spray or maybe something else. When I go to primex to ask about the ants I'll see what is best for this as well.

Pepper bed: My peppers are doing very well and are starting to flower. I have a few tiny peppers forming as well (either the Autopick or the Tangerine Dream - I dunno which yet). I also planted my red-peter pepper so the bed is now full. The cucumbers are starting to flower as well. I'll probably have some cucumbers within a week! I also bought some red mulch and mulched the whole bed (not seen in pics yet).

Herb bed: I finally got around to planting all of the herbs that we bought at WellSweep farm. I also weeded and mulched the bed (using a black mulch). The basil is doing very well (We have about 6 varieties) and so is my cilantro.

Misc stuff: I am getting artichokes!!! I have three baby artichokes on the artichoke plant that I planted in the side of the yard. The one in the planter is not doing too hot, so I am thinking I should put that in the ground soon. I've been picking the lettuce that I have been growing in the planters, and have been getting a good amount of strawberries as well. The strawberries are flowering again too - so I'll have a second batch shortly. The tomatoes are doing great too. My tumbler and wayahead tomatoes are both getting fruit and still have lots of flowers.

So that's the rundown. Check out the new June gallery for pics. Later!

Look at this - I'm posting two days in a row. Holy crap. Anyways, I had a bunch of coding to do for my class project today, but I did take a few breaks and do some gardening. This afternoon I planted two tomatoes in a long yet deep plater that I bought at Big Lots yesterday. I also added about 2 cubic feet more of dirt to my potatoes. A little less than expected - but I ended up needing the dirt to fill the plater for the tomatoes!

Tonight I watered everything in the back yard really well, and then let loose the lady bugs and nematodes that I have had in the fridge for the last two weeks. I have quite a few aphids and grubs around, so hopefully the lady bugs and nematodes enjoy the feast out in the garden.

Chomp chomp chomp...

I've been nuts recently with work and school, but I have still been taking care of my garden. That's a priority over actually blogging about it. But yes, it has been three weeks since an update but if you were paying attention I have been uploading new photos into the image galleries. If not go check them out - May has over 100 pictures in it!

Since I'm sure you are dying to know how stuff is going, I'll tell ya (I'm a nice guy like that). Starting off with the bed of potatoes - they are looking great. Last weekend I added about 4 cubic feet more of dirt but I still need to add lost more to keep them covered up. I'll probably be adding another 4-8 cubic feet more of dirt + peat moss soon. But the potatoes look happy and are about to bloom.

My 'salad bed' is doing great. The shallots are getting huge, and I harvested a gallon size bag of spinach today. The snow peas are getting tall, but still no flowers. I dunno why no flowers yet, but hopefully soon. Also I've thinned out my carrots, and all the lettuce is doing great as well. Speaking of lettuce - the lettuce I have in the planters on the back porch is doing good too. I've been having an aphid problem, but I've put out some ladybugs and that is helping a bit. But there are still some aphids, so I'll probably use some hot-pepper wax spray soon on them.

My bed of tomatoes is looking awesome. I have planted the last tomatillo (my pineapple tomatillo that was so small and sad is getting bigger) and my last black cherry tomato. The bed is completely full at this point - 12 tomatoes and 4 tomatillos. I'll be a salsa factory this summer. I got two sets of tomato cages and tomato trays from my parents for my birthday (along with a wheelbarrow - sweet!) all setup in the bed as well. Some of the tomatoes and the tomatillos are already flowering!

Next door to the tomato bed is the bed of cabbage, bok choi, and beans. The cabbage and bok choi are getting there, but slower than what the seed package said (60 days - whatever). My beans are only doing OK. The edamame is doing the worst - these seeds don't want to sprout. I just did a THIRD planting of beans and I may only have 6 edamame plants up after all three plantings. Sigh. I guess I wont have that much edamame this year, but you never know.

The last vegetable bed is the pepper and cucumber bed. I planted all of my peppers last week and some of them are even getting buds on them. The cucumbers are still kinda small but doing ok. One got killed by something, but losing one out of 8 plants isn't too bad. I'll have to drop another seed in there soon.

The artichokes are still doing the same. The one in the planter is looking a little pale, but I just gave it some fertilizer so hopefully that will help it out. The strawberries are just about to ripen. I actually had a ripe one this morning (the 1st one this year) and ate it - yummy! The mesculin lettuce is coming back as well since I cut it all down a week or so ago.

In news other than the vegetables - I have a bunch of new herbs to plant in our herb bed. Debbie took me to Well-Sweep Herb Farm for my birthday and let me pick out all the plants I wanted. I got lots of basil, sage, lemon grass, chives, garlic, and lots more. So I have been busy getting some of that stuff into the ground, but I have only done a little so far. I needed to move the tarragon in the herb bed to the center since it is the largest plant in that bed and was drooping over the pathway.

And in the front garden everything is doing very well - it is pretty maintence free out there (which is a great thing). The gout weed that I sprayed is really dying back which is great. I'll probably have to do a second application but hopefully in a few years this stuff will finally be under control.

Well, that's it for now. I only have 1.5 more weeks of school, so I probably won't post until after then. But I may end up uploading new pictures - so keep an eye out.

Yesterday I finally got my tomatoes in the ground. I have been working on hardening them off for the last week or so, and they were so tall I couldn't keep them underneath the grow light anymore. So outside they went. I also put out my tomatillos. I ended up buying 3 live tomatillo plants off of eBay since I only had one healthy plant out of the 6 that I planted - and you need at least 2 to get fruit. The only place I could find live tomatillos was eBay - go figure.

Before I planted the tomatoes I needed to move some rouge potatoes that had survived in the bed from last year. I just moved them all over to the center row of my potato bed. Then in went the tomatoes. I put in 3 tomatillo plants (2 that I bought and 1 of my own), and 11 tomato plants. I still have my pineapple tomatillo to put in if it lives, and I have another black cherry tomato that is still small that will need to go out later.

The other beds are doing well. My shallots, spinach, lettuce, carrots, and snow-pea bed is looking great. My snow peas should be getting flowers soon. The potato bed is now full, and looking good as well. I'm going to have lots of potatoes this year hopefully.

My beans on the other hand are looking rather sad. I planted my edamame about 2 weeks ago and only a few are starting to come up. So I threw a few more seeds into the ground just in case. My cabbage and bok-choi have been progressing slowly, but are still a long ways off. Oh, and my cucumbers have started to come up.

In the platers things are doing great. I cut all of the mesculin mix lettuce, and my other two lettuce platers are looking good. The strawberry has lots of baby strawberries on it and is getting more flowers. I should get a bunch just from that one planter. Both artichokes are doing well too - but no sign of any flowers or anything on them - just leafy. We'll see what happens with them.

I took some pictures, but only of the back garden, the first pictures for May. I should be taking some of the front garden this week, but I have a midterm due Thursday (stupid take home midterm) and then a huge program due on Sunday night (Anyone feel like writing a checkpointing and incremental logging algorithm for me while I garden - free tomato plants to the first taker.)

So go check out the image galleries. Later.

I've resorted to the unthinkable - to herbicide. Not against anything I love, but against the gout weed. It is spreading like crazy in the front yard and no matter how much of it I pull out it just comes back. So I broke down and bought some spray to use on ivy to get rid of it. We'll see how it does. The spray says that it will wilt in a day and then die over a few weeks. From reading around online I know that I'll need to do several applications, and probably keep at it for a year or so, but I'm just hoping to keep it at bay at this point. It's covering everything.

Well I just needed to get that off of my chest. I so didn't want to resort to weed killers but I have no other choice. I don't have the time to try to dig out the whole yard.

So anyways, in other news everything is looking well. My potatoes are coming up, and the snow peas are a few inches tall. Cabbage and bok choi are still tiny but getting there. No action yet from the beans. Artichokes are looking good, as is my lettuce. The strawberry in the planter is doing very well and has a few dozen flowers. Looks like I'll have some strawberries soon!

In the front everything (other than the gout weed - Muahahahaha) is looking good. The broom is still blooming and is quite fragrant. All the other potted plants are doing well. Debbie gave me a coleus that I have planted on the porch. It is a really cool looking one - I'll take some pictures of it soon.

The broom is in full bloom! I've uploaded new pictures of it into the image gallery. I finally got it to stand up - at least for the time being. I was trying to use bamboo sticks, but they would just end up bending and the broom would be laying across the path the next day or so. So I found an old small but sturdy trellis in the back shed that I stuck in the ground and attached the broom to. Hopefully that will hold it up.

In other news, I planted lots of more seeds outside yesterday: edamame, red noodle long beans, cucumbers, and some more lettuce. The potatoes are starting to come up, and as it turns out I missed a few in the bed that I grew the potatoes in last year ( the bed that will be the tomatoes this year ) and they were popping up as well. So I moved them over to the potato bed. It looks like my carrots are starting to come up too.

I also broke out the weed-wacker and went to town on the weeds getting a start in the back yard. I'm determined to keep them at bay this year. Hehe. We'll see.

I also transplanted more of my seedlings into bigger pots. Mainly tomatoes and peppers. I'm getting worried about my tomatillo's though. I only have 1 (out of the 6 seeds that I planted! (well, the cats did eat one...)) that is doing well, and I have 1 that is so sad and tiny. I'm giving it some TLC in hopes it will do OK, but it may not. I think I need at least 2 of them to get fruit, so I'm hoping for the best. Anyone know where I can pick up a live tomatillo plant?

What else... hmmm. Oh yeah, what I thought was my Zulu Prince daisy was just a plain old daisy-like weed. Doh. Oh well. Oh! I had my first salad from the garden yesterday. I picked some of the mesculin mix from one of the Ikea planters that I have in the back yard. It was yummy. Nothing like freshly picked salad greens.

Last night I came down with a fever and today I took the day off of work because I feel like total crap. But I figured that I would take a few minutes to upload the photos that I took over the weekend. They are all in the 2008->April gallery.

Most of my seedlings are getting really big. I spent a few hours over the weekend transplanting them into larger pots. Some of the tomato plants are getting quite large and will be ready to go outside soon. I'm thinking around the first week of May will be good to put things out. The weather is really warm and at night the lows are about 50, so I think the danger of frost has passed. Go global warming! Hehe.

I'm in the process of hardening off my cabbage plants that I started indoors. The ones that I planted outside directly are just starting to come up. So are most of the other things that I planted outside: shallots, spinach, snow peas, lettuce, and bok choi. No sign from the potatoes yet, but I think they took a few weeks last year before they popped their heads up.

The stuff in planters is doing great as well. Both artichokes (the one in the planter and the other that I just moved to the side of the yard) seem to have survive transplanting. Actually they didn't wilt or seem to go into shock at all. The strawberries that I have in a planter as well are starting to get some flowers. The lettuce is doing great too - I should be able to have a salad from them by next week. Yum!

In the front yard, most things are doing great. Unfortunately so is the gout weed. I think that either later in the summer or next year I'll need to rip up the front yard and put down weed block to try to stop it. It gets worse and worse each year no matter how much I try to pull it out.

I'll take some more pictures again this weekend, probably the last for April.

Yesterday turned out to be a really nice day outside, which kinda sucked because I had to spend most of the day indoors working on an application for my Distributed Systems class. But I did manage to get outside and do a tiny bit. I planted some bok choi seeds in the back yard, watered all my seeds, and took some pictures. Enjoy!

Yes - two weeks since an update, but nothing much has been going on. The tree guys came this week and trimmed down the overhanging holly tree in the back yard, so I was finally able to start planting my beds in the back yard yesterday. I planted my purple and yellow fingerling potatoes in one bed. In the bed next to them I planted my cool weather crop seeds: snow peas, spinach, lettuce, shallots, and cabbage.

I also finally moved the artichoke. Actually I moved both artichokes (there were two). The smaller of the two went into the biggest planter that we have. The larger went into the not-yet-developed side bed along the fence bordering our next door neighbors.

As for my seeds - they are all doing well. Most things have come up. My tomatillo's aren't doing so hot, so I may need to re-plant those seeds. But other than that most of my seeds are doing well. Some of my tomato plant are about 6 inches tall at this point!

The front yard is doing great as well. The Zulu Prince daisy is getting a bunch of buds on it. The hosta's and lily-of-the-valley are starting to come back.

I have misplaced our camera, but hopefully it will be found soon so I can take some more pics.

I'm very sad to say that my week of vacation is now over and I am due to head back to work in 45 minutes. Sigh. I did get a lot accomplished however. The entire front yard, all three beds and the porch, have been cleaned out and re-mulched. I also started all of my seeds, and have filled the porch with spring flowers. I also started a few planters in the back yard with various types of lettuce and a planter of strawberries. Four of my five vegetable beds are ready for planting.

Hopefully the guys coming to trim the trees in the backyard will call me shortly. They could not guarantee that the workers would not step on my beds, so I'm not planting anything until they are done with the work. I'm hoping it is sometime this week. I need to plant my potatoes, snow peas, lettuce, and spinach soon.

The two most major remaining items are getting the last vegetable bed ready (I need to move the artichoke that is in the bed somewhere - it gets way too big) and to build an arch support over one of the other beds. But that's not too bad.

So I think that so far I have a pretty good start for the season. It's the last day of March and a lot of the garden is ready. And I have taken 69 photographs of the garden so far. That's a record for March. We'll see if I keep up with it (and this blog) for the rest of the season. It's easy to keep up with it when I don't have work or school, and since both are starting back up this week my life will resume its normal hectic pace.

Oh well. Back into the land of technology. At least when I get home from work/school I now have a pretty front yard to greet me and I won't feel like a slacker for not taking care of the front gardens. :)