Try, Try Again: A Garden Post

Yesterday afternoon, I brought in a sugar snap pea for each of the kids to try, fresh off the vine. Conor loved his so much that he promptly took a bowl outside to gather every one he could reach. And then recruited Aiden for the ones he couldn't.

The garden has been slower going this year than last, but not because I haven't tried. I've been battling the wild. Well, squirrels and crows. They dug up most of my seeds and seedlings, and I've had to replant a few times. Once the green really gets going, they leave the garden alone, but all that tempting dirt means bugs and grubs, and they just can't resist. Anyway, I thought I'd show you what's starting to grow in my treasured garden.

You saw the Sugar Snap Peas above. These are garden peas here, and this will be one of my projects today, to harvest and shell them. There are a ton of plants here, around 90, all along this back bed. I planted 8 seeds to a square and there are 12 squares. These peas have been very productive.

Here's some surviving spinach, with some newer spinach seedlings tucked in around it. You also see some cilantro in the back there, and a tomato plant that will be caged.

Here's more cilantro. I have a goal to make my own salsa/pico this year, so I planted lots of cilantro. I planted lots of parsley too, seedlings that I grew inside the house, but within a few hours of transplanting, they were all gone. Stupid squirrels like parsley, I guess. Cilantro, not so much.

Here's some of the Swiss Chard. This is Fordhook Giant Chard, but I also have rainbow chard seedlings growing in there too. Can't wait for that shot of color to the garden.

Some lettuce.

The glorious beans! I have two beds with beans in them. This bed has 12 squares, 4 plants to a square (some didn't come up, but most did) of regular green beans.

I counted 102 plants that came up, of the 116 I planted.

This second bed of beans, which actually comes first, has 16 squares of beans, 4 to a square. These are called Dragon Tongue beans, which are green beans with purple stripes on them. Can't wait to see these. They're new to my garden this year.

Next to the Dragon Tongue beans are two volunteer Cherry Tomato plants. This is where the Cherries were last year and about 200 new plants have come up since then. Every day I pull new ones out, but I left these two and will cage them very soon. They have blossoms already. I don't want more than two Cherry Tomatoes, because to me, they're really the most worthless of tomatoes. Way too juicy for sauce, can't slice them. They become snacking/salad tomatoes and they produce so abundantly that I figured two plants was enough.

I'm giving peppers a try again this year. Last year I had zero luck with peppers. Something kept eating the leaves off. I have jalapenos (for my salsa) and red bells growing, and so far, so good.

Here are two squares of leeks, something else that didn't work last year. I started the seedlings inside this time, and they seem to be okay so far. I've found that I really love Potato Leek Soup with Bacon, so I wanted to grow my own leeks.

This is the second bed, with the green beans, Swiss Chard, red bell peppers, lettuce, and yellow pear tomatoes.

This is the first bed, with the Cherry tomatoes, the purple beans, the jalapenos, and leeks.

This is the third bed, with the Sugar Snap peas, spinach, cilantro, and then the Roma tomatoes, a Striped tomato, and a red slicing tomato.

This is another look at the third bed. These are the Roma tomato plants.

Oh, look! Some blueberries!

It's a lot of brown still right now, but by next month the green will really be taking off!