Vegetable Garden Week 7 - April 24

The garden is looking good! I was worried that after the cold snap after planting these seeds that they might suffer, but so far they're looking very healthy! The snap peas are already almost six inches high, the radishes are growing like crazy and there are little red bulbs just under the dirt, and the lettuce looks very thick and healthy so far. 

Vegetable Garden Week 1 - March 13

What a beautiful weekend! It was so warm and springy - the perfect time to start the garden. My sweet husband did all the heavy lifting since I can't really be lugging topsoil bags or turning soil at this point. 

July 26 - Vegetable Garden Week 17

The garden is looking pretty sad. The deer have eaten almost everything. Even though we have about 13 tomato plants, we do not have any tomatoes - just stalks of where the flowers and baby tomatoes once were. So depressing! I think we're getting a deer fence so maybe next summer we'll have better luck. The above picture was our whole haul - a cucumber, some basil, and a handful of green beans. 

At least it was a beautiful weekend!

May 31 - Vegetable Garden Week 9

The garden is great. The snap peas are about 2 feet high, the tomatoes are growing well, and we actually have some strawberries growing. The mulch is keeping the weeds down and it looks nicer. We're still getting radishes, but I'm looking forward to snap peas and all the other good veggies. 

May 16 - Vegetable Garden Week 7

Everything is growing! It's so nice to have radishes because we've already gotten to harvest a few and eat them. This is great because most things (tomatoes, beans, eggplants, cucumbers, etc) won't be ready for a few months. We put down mulch to try to keep down weeds and hold in moisture (we didn't do it last year) so hopefully that will make life easier in the long run.

April 26 - Vegetable Garden Week 4

Even though it has been frigid lately, things are growing! The radishes, snap peas, and lettuce have all sprouted.

Garden - Week 8, May 3

The garden is doing well! I forgot to take more pictures, but the snap peas are growing really well, the regular peas only have like 3 shoots, the lettuce is coming up nicely, the swiss chard isn't really, the zucchini hasn't come up yet, neither has the cucumber. The radishes are doing really well and I culled/thinned them a bit, resulting in a couple adorable micro radishes. They were peppery and delicious.

Garden - Week 6, April 20

The garden is coming along! The snap peas, peas, radishes, and lettuces were all sprouting. The chard was coming up a little bit, but not as quick as the others. It's so satisfying to see!

Garden Plan

Yay warm weather and springtime! We're going out to Long Island this weekend and I'll finally be able to check on the snap peas, peas, lettuces, swiss chard, and radishes we planted a few weeks ago. Hope they're alive!

Every year, I make a garden plan - some years better documented than others. The garden is a little bigger as we plan to build a fence (more on that to come) so it opens up room to plant some news things, like strawberries, beans, and radishes, and give everything some space. Up there are all the major plants, but the blank spaces will be filled in with some herbs (basil, tarragon, parsley, etc) and some flowers (marigolds, nasturtiums, and zinnias). I can't wait!

Garden - Week 1, March 15

It's time to start the garden! Can you believe it? It has been such a long, cold winter, but there are some things you can plant as soon as the ground can be worked, and if you have raised garden beds, the ground can probably be worked now.

Vegetable Garden June 22 (Week 14)

Garden's looking great! We have a ton of snappeas and lots and lots of zucchini blossoms. (Fried zucchini blossoms are one of my very favorite summer treats.) Also got our first zucchini, and our first cherry bomb pepper (but it's still green, so I'm waiting on it). Some deer have been nibbling on the tomato and zucchini plants, which has never happened, so I sprayed extra deer spray on. Hopefully this week they'll be okay.

Cherry Bomb Pepper

Vegetable Garden Week 5

The vegetable garden is really starting to look like a garden! (Though a little goofy with the wall o waters.) It's so great. We packed up the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants that had been living in our apartment and headed out to Long Island Saturday morning.

The wall o waters are up, and they will really be tested this week with the temperatures suddenly plummeting! I planted all of my tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. I was able to squeeze a few of the little ones together in one wall o water, so that was nice.

Tomatoes from Union Square

My 4 Big Boys and 4 Super Sweet 100s are growing bigger every day on my windowsill, but I needed some funky heirlooms to round them out (my garden has space for 13 tomato plants! isn't it amazing??). On a Wednesday trip to Union Square I came back with 5 very cool tomato plants - 2 cherry tomato and 3 bigger. I can't wait to see the tomatoes they have because they all look so funky and cool. I didn't get any heirloom beefsteaks because I think we'll have enough with the 4 Big Boy plants. We'll certainly have tons of cherry tomatoes! Those are so great for salads and are always prolific, so I don't mind. I can make salsa, too!

Here are the cool heirlooms I bought today! (Info from rareseeds.com) I hope to have a very colorful garden!

Big:

Japanese Black Trifele - "80-90 days. Attractive tomatoes are the shape and size of a Bartlett pear with a beautiful purplish-brick color; the fruit are perfect and smooth with no cracks. The flavor is absolutely sublime, having all the richness of fine chocolate. This was our heaviest producer for 2004. The plants produced loads of fruit all summer long. It has become a favorite with many seed savers and we are glad to be able to offer such a colorful variety. It is believed to have come from Russia, so don't ask me about the name! "

Plum Lemon - "80 days. Bright canary-yellow 3” fruit looks just like a fresh lemon. The perfect tomato for marketing (along with Green Zebra, Orange Banana, and Black Prince) to chefs and other gourmets. This variety was collected by Kent Whealy, of Seed Savers Exchange, from an elderly seedsman at the Bird Market in Moscow. Delicious, sweet-taste. "

Vegetable Garden Week 4

After being away for about a month, I went back out to the country last weekend and got to see my garden. Apart from being super dry, it looked great! (Especially once I watered it.) Four of the five brussels sprouts I planted sprouted, a perfect line of beets popped up (I'll need to thin them next weekend), and all the peas had sprouted! So exciting.

Brussels Sprouts

Beets

Peas

I planted another row of beets and carrots, a row of swiss chard, zucchinis, and cucumbers. I also set up a little trellis for the cucumbers and planted some lettuce underneath.

Rhubarb!

My wonderful friend Kara came back from her house in PA this weekend with a piece of split rhubarb for me! I'm so, so excited because I loooove rhubarb. This rhubarb was Kara's great-grandmother's! It's really hard to plant rhubarb from seeds and it's recommended that you split the crown of an existing rhubarb plant and plant that. I'm not going to put it directly in the garden because they tend to get huge (fingers crossed!). I'm already day dreaming about all of the things I want to make with it. Pie (my fave), chutney, jam, sorbet (this sorbet is amazing), and even mustard.

What are your favorite rhubarb recipes? I can't get enough.

Wall O Water

Has anyone ever used these?? I just found out about them from this blog and I'm super excited about it. I hope they arrive by Friday so I can plant my tomatoes this weekend (and peppers and eggplants too). If not, I'll do it next weekend. I'm so excited to try them. You can get them on Burpee and Amazon. Hope they work. Of course, will keep you posted!

Garden Bed #2

Jamie and I were out in Southampton with our garden plan this weekend and ready to dive into this year's garden. It feels great to be outside and working in the dirt! Very satisfying. We built a second garden bed, so it was back to Riverhead Building Supply for wood and Lynch's for LOTS of dirt and composted manure.
We found out they do free delivery, so that was great. We put the new garden together pretty quickly - after doing the first one last year, we're old hands now.

Garden Planning

Jamie and I are starting up the garden this weekend (according to Martha Stewart, it's a tradition to plant peas on St. Patrick's Day!). We're building a second garden bed, too, giving us double the room! I've been thinking for weeks about what I want to plant this year, even trying to plant my tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants from seeds. Above is my sketched out plan (the beds are 8'x4' so it's easier to make a grid). The peas will be done by mid-June, so they'll allow the plants near them more room to grow later. And I only plan to do about 2 rounds of carrots and beets, so the bushy tomatoes can grow into that space. The bed nearer to the hedge will have the lower plants and the bed further the higher (so they both get as much sun as possible). I can't wait to start eating fresh vegetables! (It is sad to think how long I'll have to wait - we probably won't even get the peas until late May.)

Wish us luck!

The plan:

Plants in Bed #1
Swiss Chard
Brussel Sprouts
Herbs (basil, mint, thyme, oregano, marigolds, nasturtiums...)
Carrots
Beets
Sweet 100 Tomatoes (and probably Green Grape tomatoes)
Zucchini
Cucumber
Peas (only for the spring/early June)

Plants in Bed #2
Hot peppers
Herbs (same as above)
Eggplant
Tomatoes
Peas (only for the spring/early June) 

Spring!

This weather is unbelievable! Walking home in daylight makes me feel like I have so much time after work! My legs are also psyched to be free from tights at last. And, my first iced coffee of spring tastes refreshing and wonderful. I usually sprinkle some sugar in the bottom of a glass, pour in about 1 tablespoon or two of hot coffee, swirl it around until the sugar melts, dump in a bunch of ice cubes, cover them with coffee and a little skim milk, and swirl around with a spoon until the whole glass feels icy cold. Then a fish out some of the ice cubes. It's also great to do it in a cocktail shaker - you get a good frothy iced coffee. I know the best is supposed to be cold brewed, but who has the time?

Does anyone have any life-changing iced coffee tips?

Happy spring!! Hooray!

(Jamie and I are going out to Long Island this weekend to build an addition on our garden and plant our peas!)

Seedlings!

Now that spring is on the way, it's time for veggie garden 2012! I planted a few seedlings that need to start indoors. I got a seed starter tray and a few packets of seeds - hot peppers (a variety so we'll see what we get!), eggplant (another variety), Sweet 100 tomatoes, and Big Boy tomatoes. They're happily living on my windowsill in the city right now. I'll probably have to put some of them into pots or bigger containers before May, but once it's warm enough outside, they can go in the ground. I'll harden them off on my fire escape first. Hope they all stay happy and healthy!