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.