Happy New Year!...Spring 2008

Ok, so its not a new year, but as everything is waking up for the spring, I feel like this new birth needs a better description than just "spring".

Sorry to the 4 people who read this blog regularly for such a long absence and no new posts. Winter sucks and I just don't want to think about much of anything. I try to wile the time away reading, knitting/crocheting and just hibernating in general.

So, for this new year of planting, I have some neat new things to share. Last year's garden was about 25 feet x 10-12 feet. This year, I am going nuts and have planted about 75 feet x 10-12 feet. Yep, I know that's a large leap, but I kept wishing for more space last year and, ironically, now that I have more space, I want EVEN MORE space. I guess I'll just fill up any space no matter how big or small.

I am going to try to work on a schematic of the garden this year to post, but in the meantime, I have some pictures to add and I'll stick the list of things up as well.




















This is a nice pic of Daisy's bum. Also you can see the herb garden.



Great pic of my established herb garden. The far right is bee balm (used for tea), there are tons of onions, and in the back some spearmint, thyme (in bloom) and lavander.



This is last years parsley (its perennial). Its nearly five foot high. Awesome!



Onion, thyme and clover. Ah, so pretty.

So far, so good.

As you can see, the garden is growing almost faster than I can keep up with it. Luckily, I was vigilant about weeds in the beginning, because things are growing so quickly now that I can hardly walk down a few of the rows. Also luckily, most of the grass/weeds have decided that they don't stand much of a chance around me, and have fled for greener pastures.

Yesterday, my mom and I built a nice trellis type thingy (very technical, I know) to hold the cantelope in and to encourage it to grow up instead of out. The cantelope has adapted quite well and is happily climbing the ropes and wood now. I'll post a picture of it tomorrow if I can remember to.

My yellow squash and zucchini have produced like mad for the past 2 weeks or so and we have been eating squash like it is going out of style. Quite delicious, I must say.

My tomatoes have been struck by a terrible infestation of what I can only guess are mites. I've used my awesome Rodale's Garden Problem solver and it seems to describe mites as my problem, though the mites I have are white, not red or black as the book describes. I don't know what they are really. Tiny white plump spiders. They seem to suck holes in the leaves and then the leaves sort of curl into a long tube or something when it gets several mites on the leaf. Anyhow, I finally broke down yesterday and sprayed pytherins on it (tomatoes, eggplants--they have flea beetles again, and a few of my pepper plants that were experiencing some flea beetles too). Anyhow, I always loathe to spray anything, even an organic pesticide, because I know if a beneficial bug comes along, it too will be killed.

Anyway, hopefully that will solve this onslaught of bugs.

I've come to realize that planting the greenbeans wasn't the best idea. My bushes are doing great, but I only have 5-6 of them and they just don't produce enough beans to justify the space they are taking up, though I have enjoyed picking the fresh beans and eating them raw. Too bad there isn't enough to ever steam for dinner.

My sunflowers are very gratifying. They are going like crazy and are over my head now. I cannot wait until the flowers form.

Otherwise, everything's going great, the garden is taking over pretty much most of my daylight time, but I don't mind one bit.