Garden Update #4

Howdy all. Yes, I said howdy. I hope you're all well. I'm doing pretty good. My job is keeping me pretty busy, and leaving me uninspired in the kitchen. So, I decided it was time to do another garden update. I had some pretty sad happenings with the garden last week. I had to remove all of my broccoli and brussels. They were terribly infested with caterpillars that seemed to appear overnight. They devoured my plants and, in my desire to have a totally organic garden, I decided to to stay pesticide-free and just pull them up. Such is life and I'll surely recover. In the mean time, here are some photos of my garden....

Looks messy, but it's because my tomatoes are going wild!

Cherry tomatoes.

Cherry tomatoes...lots and lots.

Some heirloom tomatoes.

Lil jalapeno! They are growing so slow.

Bigger jalapeno.

Summer squash. Also growing very very slowly.

Some of my many romas.

I thought my peas were all done. They all dried up except this tiny plant with a giant pod.

A ripe cherry tomato and one of my red onions.

This is in my backyard. Very cool little guys at my feeder.

Garden Update #3!

I've been waiting a while for this update because growth in the garden has been slow the last few weeks. But, over the last 6 days, things have gone wild! It's like my garden hit its puberty growth spurt all of a sudden and it seems to have grown every time I blink my damn eyes. So, I decided it was definitely time for an update. I just realized last night that I have tomatoes. Like, for real. They're green, but they're there. And, drumroll please, jalapenos! Rock on. I'm ready to make some salsas...now if the tomatoes would just turn red...
I am bummed that my watermelon plants died. And all but 1 of my okra plants died. The onions and garlic are going really well. You can only see their tall greens, so I didn't bother to photograph them. The green zucchini are full of flowers, but no actual zukes yet, so that's another I didn't get a photo of. Well, lovelies (and not so lovelies), That is all for now. Enjoy the garden....or not. Whatever.

Whole garden shot. Looks wild.

L to R: Romaine, peppers, toms, onions, garlic.

L to R: Peas, garlic, brussels, romaine, strawberries (that are not producing...grrr).

Pea plant and some garlic.

Pea plant with lots of flowers.

Pea plant starting to bud more.

Hard to see, but in the little brown spot in the center, is a bell pepper starting to grow.

Cherry tomatoes. Back right are some romas.

More cherry tomatoes!

Tiny jalapeno :)

Another jalapeno hiding under the tomato leaves.

One sad little okra barely surviving out of the 4 plants I started with.

Roma tomatoes. 

Tiny summer squash. It's less than 1 inch long right now. 

Another summer squash. It's about 2 inches long. I'm so stoked!!

Meg's Garden Update #2

I am so proud of my little garden! I never thought I'd love it so much. And, today, it showed me how much it loves me, too. It let me harvest a large handful of fat and tasty peapods which I added right into Happy Herbivore's Cheater Pad Thai I was cooking for dinner, which was an instant hit! LOVE IT!!! Check it out:

And now on to the gardening updates!

My first harvest! They were magnificent. You can't beat home-grown produce.

More peas. To the left are some onions.

Tomato plant- staked and blooming :)

Staked tomato plants!

Jalapenos

L to R: romaine lettuce, bell peppers, tomato. Bottom- strawberries

Top: Allium 

L to R: Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, romaine lettuce, bell peppers and strawberries

Garlic and Peas

Peapods pre-harvest

Brussels sprouts

My first broccoli!!!

So, there it is. Dig it. Gardening rocks. (And so does the Happy Herbivore Cookbook.) I'm thinking of doing a giveaway of her book because I am absolutely smitten with it. What do you guys think?

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Meg's Garden Update 1

I have had a few people asking how my new garden is coming along, so I decided that I should maybe just update the blog with some photos of the progress. Things are coming along nicely, except for the watermelon and the okra, both of which have been hurt by this bizarre weather this year...freezing cold one day, flooding rain another, and then above average temps all within the span of 3 days. But, everything else is doing pretty well!! Or maybe that is just my wishful thinking as I'm a new gardener. Whatever. Here are the photos:

This is summer squash

Tomatoes, red onion, and garlic

Brussels sprouts and romaine lettuce

Some of the pea plants (sugar snap peas, I believe)

More peas on the trellis

Peas, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts

Almost everything

Tomatoes, onions, garlic, summer squash and more peas

Bell pepper, jalapenos, 2 kinds of tomatoes

Last but not least, my first strawberry!

The reason for my recent absence...

Hello Readers. I know there are at least a few of you folks popping by everyday, so I just wanted to update you on something special. I've been absent here for about a week because of a project I've been working hard on. I just built a raised bed garden so I can grow some veggies and fruits organically in my own yard. I've been dying to do it and I really hope it's going to pay off and save me money in the long run.

The bed itself is about 3'x6' and can hold a surprising amount of plants. I built mine of cinderblocks because it's sturdy and won't rot, unlike many woods. Plus, it was cheaper than wood. The fencing is all re-used from my yard at my old house. And the dirt a combo of new and old. I try to keep things inexpensive and easy while reusing items whenever I can. Now I'm just hoping my thumbs are as green as my lifestyle! So, here are some photos chronicling the progress of the garden.

I know it certainly isn't the prettiest thing in the world, but it'll get the job done. And, like I already said, it was cheap! I decided to plant things in the holes of the blocks to maximize my space. There are squash and zucchini in some, others hold garlic, and the back side is full of alium, which is said to keep some critters away because it smells like garlic. Another great part of the raised garden is that you can control what happens in your soil. My soil is a mix of peat, gardening soil, and some topsoil. I added some earthworms and some compost to keep the soil nice and rich. As for the fencing, I added a little chicken-wire around the bottom to keep out the little bunnies that call my yard home.

Here's what I have growing:
Broccoli, sweet peas, summer squash, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, romaine, Brussels sprouts, strawberries, red onion, garlic, and baby watermelon. Just a plant or 2 of everything.

For me, the raised bed is ideal since we have terrible soil. The majority of it is actually clay. We have less than an inch of topsoil, as you can see from the massive bare spots all over the yard! But, slowly and surely grass is coming up. The people that lived here before us never planted any grass at all, so it has been a nightmare and a half trying to re-vamp the yard. But, enough about that. Time to get back to cooking!