Well, it's been a 53 days since I planted my Espalier Apple Tree, which kickstarted my garden for this year. As you can see it FINALLY started growing leaves and even some flowers!! I was so excited (mostly because I was sooo nervous that it wasn't doing anything) when it finally started showing signs of life 2 weeks ago. It was a bit of a nail-biter situation up until then - I even made a call to my mom asking her if I should move it - even though I knew I should leave it alone - for some much needed reassurance that I hadn't killed it. The flowers below appeared almost overnight.
Now I just have to figure out how to care for my apple tree...yikes!
I also have a bunch of other updates for my garden this year. I created a page of information to put into my garden planning book. I wanted to have a place I could put all of the information for what I planted, so that each year I could look back and see what worked and what didn't. Plus, I am horrible at remembering what types of seeds I purchase every year, so I wanted to keep track of that as well.
I changed my original placement of what is around my apple tree, but it is all the same items. The garlic I originally planted on 3/30 isn't doing well - I planted 18 cloves and I think about 4 have survived - so I want to go out and plant more this weekend (if I can find some). The onions are doing well (if I compare how they look against my mom's - they should be right on track), and most of the strawberry plants are looking good (only a few died). The chives got planted a little later than I originally planned, but it was really soggy for awhile. I did see tiny little shoots coming up, but I couldn't get them to show up in the pictures. (Psst - I originally planned to add some pictures of the onions and strawberries, but they were all blurry - oops)
The asparagus I planted started growing - and they are adorable. I don't know if they are supposed to do this or not, but they make me laugh every time I see them. I was supposed to back fill them, but I forgot and now I am scared to do it - what if I crush them or something?! I might just wait until they are fading in the Fall, and fill it in to protect them during the Winter - I need to consult my panel of experts (my mom and mom-in-law). Next year I will (hopefully) be planting these in a raised bed - this year it just wasn't possible - but they take 3 years to be productive so I wanted to get a jumpstart. I had 10 crowns to start, but only 7 seem to have survived. I plan to get 10 more next year so I think it's fine. This just supports my 70/30 survival rate claims. :)
I also have artichokes, green beans and zucchini coming up. Now I need to get the courage to thin them out...I hate that part! I want them all to live, but they wont do well if they don't have enough room. I was thinking of trying some different things, since this is more of a test year than anything else. I planted 2 pots of artichokes with 8 seeds each - normally you can only grow 1 plant per pot because their leaves get so big, but I am going to leave 3 plants in one pot and 2 plants in the other. I want to see if I keep the leaves facing the inside of the pot trimmed, will they still do well? I am hoping to plant the other plants somewhere in the yard (so I can at least try not to kill them). The green beans are bush beans and they say they can be grown 2"-4" apart, so hopefully they will just be a big bush of beans for me to can this year. The zucchini should also be thinned to one, but I think I will leave two in there and see how it goes (I can always take one out if I need to). I am planning to plant additional pots of each of these in June and July, just to see how long I can extend the growing season.
Last, but hopefully not least, are these little guys...they are either tomatoes or bell peppers. They are hard to spot, but there are two plants there - really. I can't tell what they are yet, so it is a surprise (yes, I forgot to label my containers - I'm sure you're shocked). I actually have 2 pots that look like this and 1 more that hasn't done anything yet...both bell peppers and tomatoes have a 14 day germination so I have a few days left :)
I know some of you (Mom, I'm talking to you) think I'm crazy for choosing to start my tomato seeds outside, after the frost, instead of inside a few weeks/months early. I have never had good luck with transplanting, and I did some reading that says it is ok to do it this way. The only downside is that they wont be ready until around August - boo. Next year I will try to do starts, but this year I decided to skip it since we have so much to do and I don't have a Pinky proof area yet (he will not be able to control himself around them once they start growing).
There you go - an update on how my garden grows :)
Happy gardening!
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