Garden Change

Our early spring garden.

This photo was taken on April 19 of our backyard vegetable garden. Things have changed in just a little over 6 weeks. Take a look!

Look how the letuce has grown!! And it is delicious. Big red leaf is Red Derby, Caretaker (head lettuce), green bibb, speckled bibb, and green romaine are the different kinds of lettuces in the plantings.

Strawberries blooming on May 14.

Amazing how just eleven days after taking the picture above, I had berries for breakfast! On May 25, my birthday, my hubby surprised me with strawberries from the garden for my morning cereal. A very special treat since the JUNE-bearing are about two weeks early.  So far my DH has picked nine pounds of the sweet berries...soooooooooo good!

Memorial Day--Take Time to Remember

Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a day to honor and remember those who served in our Military. 

Take time today to say a prayer for those who serve today in our armed forces 

and recognize those who gave their lives for our country.

Onion Maggots--yewwwwww

                                                            

Is there anything more disgusting than maggots? Hate those pests. And this year, we have problems with them in our onions. It's been cold and wet, ideal conditions for them. We probably should have rotated the onion crops, but we didn't. It is impossible to get rid of them now. 

The Weekend Gardener has an extensive discussion on these nasty critters. Check out the site. This photo is from that e-mag and there are more good images of the disgusting creatures.

My DH has decided to grow onions in a container for this year instead of planting them in our ground. He will have to do some work on the soil to get rid of the maggots.

Growing Tomatoes Vertically

Growing tomatoes with no tomato cages

My DH is growing tomatoes this year with no tomato cages. He's decided to plant the tomatoes and then weave the plants through the re-enforcement wire. You can see the plants just set out next to the wire.

In fact he is planning to grow a lot of vegetables this year and attaching them to the wire. He calls it vertical gardening. It saves space and just think how easy it will be to pick the green beans standing up!


He is planning on growing Crista, Early Girl, and Sweet 100 tomatoes, cucumbers, honeydew, muskmelon, green and yellow pole beans, and peas on the wire. Stay tuned for how he will hold up the melons..I want to see that for sure....

Beans just set out next to wire wall. Corn plants on the right of the picture.

Anticipating Strawberry Season

Strawberries in blossom

Just looking at these strawberries in bloom makes my mouth water for strawberry cake or pie or a bowl of Cheerios topped with the delicious beauties. But I'll have to anticipate those treats making the sweet taste all the better.

These are June bearing strawberries. We gave up on Ever bearing berries because the production was low. However I see there are some new varieties out which are supposed to be improved. They call these Day Neutral strawberries and promise to bloom spring, summer, and fall. Let me know if you have tried these strawberries and how you liked them.

Waiting for this season's tasty berries. Yum!