Garden Update - Planting Day

Main Garden

My mercy what a busy weekend it was! My father did most of the planting, so I was on "Burn" detail. We had a burn pile from all the brush gathered up over the winter. Hot, hot, hot! So, as promised, here are all the lovelies planted so far, as well as some established plantings that are already popping out.

Here is the main garden. We have a row of turnips, a row of mustard, a row of Blue Lake climbing green beans, 2 Ichiban eggplants, 2 Globe eggplants, 1 cayenne pepper, 2 green bell peppers, 2 jalapeno peppers, 1 serrano pepper, and a full row of tomatoes.

Baby Tomato

Here is one of our newly planted tomatoes. This year we chose the following varieties: Rutgers, Pink Brandywine, Mr. Stripey (my favorite), Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, Golden Jubilee, Mortgage Lifter, German Johnson, Sweet 100 Cherry, and a Yellow Pear. Most of these are Bonnie Plants, but if you can find Chef Jeff, they have the best variety of Heirlooms. We use a mixture of the Sweet 100 Cherry and Yellow Pear to make our "World Famous" homemade sundried tomatoes packed in olive oil. Here's the recipe I shared with you last year.

Potatoes

Down the trail we have another patch where we planted the potatoes (Red and Yukon Gold), onions (white, yellow super sweet, and red), multiplying shallots, and garlic earlier. You can see they are popping up like crazy! We also planted 2 rows of Silver Queen corn down here.

Onions

Up on the hill (yes my dad has 3 separate gardens) we planted the crookneck squash, zucchini, cucumbers, Peaches and Cream corn, and black-eyed peas. There's no pic for these since nothing has popped up yet.




The fruit trees and bushes are coming out like crazy as well. You can see here the baby blueberries, the peach tree blossoming in bright pink, and the figs are already coming on the bush! The scuppernongs are leafing out. You might know them better as muscadines. And, the strawberries apparently love the new gutter planters. You can see the baby strawberries already busting out of the blooms.

Blueberries

Baby Figs

Peach Blossoms

Scuppernongs

Baby Strawberries

Here are a few more of the blooms popping up around the yard:

Tea Olive - smells like freshly cut peaches

Creeping Phlox

Lenten Rose

I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoy tending all these wonderful delights. My hope is you will get outside and have some fun in your garden this year as well. Please send along your garden pics, and I will be posting them for us to share.

Happy Gardening!

Saturday...In the Park

Not sure what the weather is like at your place, but let me give you a little encouragement this Saturday to get outside and boost your Vitamin D stores. Most experts these days are agreeing that the majority of adults have low levels of Vitamin D due to our lack of outdoor activities and use of sunscreen. Low levels of Vitamin D are associated with depression and fatigue. I was recently diagnosed with low levels and have been supplementing throughout the winter. Winter is the most common time to have low levels because we are naturally inside more often. But now that the days are getting longer and warmer, take some time to get outside and get some Vitamin D the way your body was intended to...Sunshine! A mere 15 minutes a day of direct sunlight exposure will go a long way to boost your stores and improve your overall mood.

Today I have to work another wedding, but tomorrow is planting day! I can't wait to share our gardens with you. What are you planting this year?

Happy Saturday!