Playing in the Dirt

I bought several plants yesterday and today and have gotten most of them in the ground or in containers. It was so nice to come home from this evening’s ballgame and play in the dirt for a while. I don’t follow any sort of method to my planting. I just pull out any containers I can find and start filling them with dirt from the inexpensive bags of topsoil that I buy at Rural King or I add more soil to the planting beds I have around the house and tuck in the plants and seeds. I need to get more dirt and finish planting the flowers, rhubarb, and some more seeds, but our garden is beginning to take shape. So far, here is what is growing in my garden:

raspberries

strawberries

tomatoes and cherry tomatoes

peppers (sweet bell, sweet banana, & jalapeno)

Japanese eggplant

red okra

Swiss chard

lettuce (red and Romaine)

corn

blueberries

lemon balm

oregano

mints (spearmint, apple mint, and chocolate mint)

pineapple sage

lemon thyme

rosemary

lavendar

sorrel

flowers (geraniums, dianthus, snapdragons, petunias, celosia, coleus, moss rose, etc)

I still have more flower and herb seeds to plant as well as squash, zucchini, lemon cucumbers, cucumbers, bush pumpkins, and more okra and chard left to start from seed. I am praying for a good growing year with an abundant harvest. What’s in your garden?

Gardening Time

I did a little gardening this week. So far. most of my gardening is in containers and in a small patch of our landscaping. The raspberries, oregano, mint, and strawberries, that I planted last year all survived the winter and are up. The blueberry bushes that I keep in pots in the garage for the winter are blooming with the promise of blueberries this summer. Most of the herbs and flowers that spent the winter in my kitchen also survived and are now outside and blooming.

In addition, I planted a tomat0, a cherry tomato, a Japanese eggplant, a sweet pepper, and some lettuce plants in a large pot and some 5 gallon buckets. I also sowed a few seeds of corn, red okra, and Swiss chard into these containers along with the plants. I plan to put out some more plants in containers as well as in the patch of the landscaping that already houses the raspberries, mint and oregano, I am also hoping to start a new garden patch or two this year. I have a rhubarb plant ready to put put in alongside the raspberries and plans for blackberries, more blueberries, and maybe figs as well.

This is the fourth year for my little garden and most years it has done well. Last summer was extremely hot and so the plants did not do as well as I had hoped. I am hoping for a better yield this year as I would like to have enough produce to can this year.

In addition to the plants and seeds already in the ground, in the next few weeks, I plan to put in cucumbers, squash, more tomatoes and peppers, sweet potatoes, and more herbs and flowers.

I am looking forward to lots of fresh fruits and veggies this year as well as a flourishing herb and flower garden that will attract hummingbirds and butterflies.