Gardening: Take 2.

Won't you join me in my gardening journey?  I talked about getting started last week here.

Sooo much progress has been made in the last week.

I have never planted so much this early.  I usually wait for the Memorial Day rule to start with the non cold hearty stuff.  However, I checked our forecast for frost.  None, nada, zip.  No frost for 10 days.  In the clear?  I think so.

So, I sort of went crazy.  Well, to those who know me, they'd just say it's another day in Jackie's life.  But really, even by my standards, I went crazy.  I planted all of this by myself or with 2 kids in tow.  Just sayin', I'm mighty proud of myself.

Now that it's almost all planted, watching it grow is the very best part.


 Okay, so what's in?  Up there is sugar pumpkins.  I planted them far away from everything else to prevent cross pollination. I only plant sugar pumpkins, as they're the type that are best for eating.  Sure, we may carve a couple, but the rest I puree and freeze.  I planted a bunch.  If we're lucky, we just may have a pick your own pumpkin party in the fall.  Wouldn't that be fun?

 Okay, so what else is there?  From Top left, clockwise: Butternut Squash and spaghetti squash are coming. Spaghetti squash is a great alternative to pasta. Kale...lots of kale.  Hoping to use it for smoothies or to dehydrate and throw in soups.  12 eggplants that I started from seed and transplanted.  30 pepper plants that I also started from seed and transplanted.  We haven't had a lot of luck with peppers here, but I talked to the local farmer from the farm stand and he gave me some fertilizing hints. Strawberries are coming-our friends mentioned that to get best production you shouldn't pick the first year.  We're ignoring that rule and going to eat them anyway.  Broccoli-30 plants I started from seed are in right now.  I cannot believe how big they are.  Broccoli is so easy to cut, blanch and freeze. Garlic-we'll likely eat the scrapes soon (and the lilacs are beautiful in the background).  And peas in the middle.  Also, we have some  sunflowers, spinach, carrots and swiss chard up (not pictured).

And tomatoes...that I started from seed. They're really quite big!  I planted 28 plants.

I wasn't going to do onions, but then I decided to last minute.  I planted 170 bulbs.  How's that for thinking I wasn't going to do any?!

In case you're following-we still haven't located the patch of asparagus on this property. But the blueberries that I thought weren't taking are looking better.

I still need to plant all those flats of basil I started from seed.  And parsley.  Plus some flowers I have started inside.  I also am going to do heirloom raspberries, maybe tomorrow?  And I want my husband to till up an area to grow some annual cut flowers.

I've planted and am waiting on summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers,corn, green and yellow beans, potatoes and the onions. Plus rosemary, oregano and cilantro. One of my all time summer faves is herbed cream cheese-my husband chops a bunch of herbs and mixes it with cream cheese. Spread that on your morning bagel-mmm!

We have a plethora of chives.  Which is good, as our free ranged chickens at them all at our other house. Baked potato with fresh chives?  Yes, please.
 
We have rhubarb a plenty-6 plants.  Wow!

It looks like not much now, but in the ground, there's lots growing-or so I hope.  It will be fun to see what it will be in a few weeks.
 
We had a little grown up playdate this week. I got together with a friend and we chopped rhubarb and strawberries to freeze for 8 different crisps/pies. Fun times!
 

The wildflowers are fun to find.  Here's some violets.

 And bluets.

 And do you see we'll have a good chuck of our field that will be all daises?!  SQUEE!

 And a whole hedge of lilacs, on each side of our house.  Imagine how our yard smells now.

 There's this beautiful rock garden in front of our house.  I've spent about 4 hours cleaning it out thus far and only are about 1/2 way done.  It's coming though.

It's all coming together, really.  My dad reminds me that it will take years to get this farmhouse back to what it was.  There's a lot of progress that's been made already.  For that, I'm grateful.