Category: Planting

Porch Update Early June

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The porch looks great. I have a nice mix of flowers, herbs and vegetables. Despite my vow to not grow tomatoes on the porch this year, I have two cherry tomato plants: one Black Strawberry (grown from seed) and one Super Sweet 100 (given to me by a friend). I also have three pepper plants: Thai, Jalapeno and Sweet Pickle, one big container of basil and numerous other herbs (rosemary, sage, mint, thyme, chives, Thai basil, cilantro, parsley). Plus a big pot with Swiss Chard, which I have been harvesting and eating (for example sauteed with garlic over pan-fried lemon garlic flounder) over the past few days. A couple of days ago, I reseeded salad greens in two of the pepper containers (May Queen with the Jalapeno and Salanova Mix with the Sweet Pickle). The third pepper container (Thai) contains the Thai basil.

Almost all of my porch plantings. On the other end of the porch are my potted palm, a (tiny) bitter orange tree, lemon grass, calendula and cilantro.

Planting Flowers and Corn

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Today I direct-seeded Zinnias, Cosmos, Nigella and poppies (towards the fence) as well as nasturtium (in between the tomatoes and the kale and chard). I also planted corn: King Philip corn, a Wampanoag native flint corn (I received the seeds from True Love Seeds through a friend) and glass gem corn (seeds saved from last year). I also reseeded carrots. My dahlia tubers will go in the ground tomorrow. Miraculously, every single one survived the winter in my basement being completely neglected. Looking forward to lots of flowers this season.

I also harvested the last of my porch radishes for this spring. So crisp and sharp!

Planting the Last Seedlings

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I finished planting my garden plot for now. Today, I transplanted the remaining seedlings: 5 cucumbers (3 x National Pickling, 1 x Straight Eight, 1 x Tokiwa), winter squash (one each butternut, honey nut, delicata), one more tomato just because (Dr. Wyche Yellow), leeks, cilantro, 1 zucchini, lettuces (May Queen, Salanova Mix and Black Seeded Simpson), eggplant (3 each Nadia and Thai), kale and Swiss Chard. All I have to do now is put in flowers (all direct-sow except the dahlias) and direct-sow corn, beets, carrots and greens and plant the rhubarb.

Planting Tomatoes

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I finally got to spend a few hours in the garden to weed and plant. COVID had basically knocked me out the entire month of April, and life, work and the weather got in the way until today. While weeding, I discovered that the cilantro and the beets I sowed earlier this spring germinated. They are tiny because of all the weeds but are looking strong. Yay! So I excavated them plus the sole kale plant and the couple of carrots that survived. I have had all my seedlings ready for weeks, but now finally got to plant the first batch: tomatoes (12 plants, 10 varieties total, I doubled Ananas Noire and Stupice), four basil plants and four marigolds. All grown from seed except the marigolds, which came from Neighborhood Farm. The peas and the garlic are looking good. Next, I will plant all the cucumbers and squash, eggplant, lettuce, leeks etc. waiting so patiently on my back porch.

Spring Planting and First Harvest

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Peas

I have not been in the garden for a while because I had COVID for the past three and a half weeks and was not feeling too great. I had managed to sow peas and spring greens in early April and they are sprouting. Today, I did more direct sowing. I sowed red beets (Detroit Dark Red), carrots (Scarlet Nantes and Danvers Half Long), Rainbow Chard and cilantro. I also transplanted a parsley plant I had purchased a few days ago and four kale seedlings I had started indoors a few weeks ago. We still do not have water in the garden. Fingers crossed for some showers in the next few days, so I do not have to schlepp water from home.

I also harvested my first crops today, spring onions. They were so fragrant! And the asparagus is getting ready.

Spring onions before trimming …
… and after
My purple asparagus poking out

Repotting

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I repotted my seedlings today. 43 seedlings overall (7 cells did not have any germination): tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, basil. That included five kale plants that were repotted as well and are currently hardening off on the back porch. I also bought some rosemary, thyme, parsley and calendula seedlings yesterday for the back porch. The radishes, lettuces and arugula I direct-sowed in containers a couple of weeks ago are looking really good.