my first garden

this is kind of another "finally" post - because i'm finally posting about the garden. this is the first time i have ever gardened before and i'm kind of nutty about it. every time we don't have to buy something at the grocery store because we're growing it in the garden is so exciting. and now it seems like each time i make a trip to the garden i'm coming back with more. this week the green beans surprised me and i came home with a handful of long, stringy beans with the usual lettuce and peas - and a jalapeno and a few stumpy carrots. the picture above is from a couple weeks ago, including the cherry tomato "tree" in the driveway (it's huge) and some wildflowers from the garden.

this picture below is about two months old - a lot of these plants are about three times as large. i'll have to "finally" post a more recent picture of the jungle.

i wished i had been taking notes all along so that i could reference it next year, and then i realized i can use my blog to take those notes just like i do for my other projects.

what's worked:

• peas - all of a sudden these exploded a few weeks ago and we've cooked whole pods in pasta, blanched shelled peas, eaten raw pods (with peas in them and without). next year i'd like to plant them a little earlier; i think they're dying now because they're drying out and i wonder if we could have gotten more out of them if they peaked with more time before it got so hot.



• lettuce - wow. we overplanted but we've had lettuce for weeks and weeks. i spent the first couple months thinning them every time i went, but once the leaves were a couple inches long, thinning them resulted in salad every time. i would maybe not plant quite so many seeds, but i would overplant again.


• green beans - so far so good. we planted bush beans and i had no idea that when i pulled back the leaves they would be crawling with beans. they're a little pale, but they taste good.

better luck next time:

• spinach - we got a tiny yield and then it bolted, i think because they were planted too closely. it is a tiny garden.


• carrots - they taste great but aren't getting much longer than three inches, i think because they were too crowded and the soil is too rocky. we'll see if the ones still in the ground make more progress.

the verdict is still out for the corn, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. up next for fall: brussels sprouts, potatoes, kale, and zucchini. for starters.