First 2011 Seedlings

Today I finally planted my first seeds of 2011...I actually meant to plant them last week but hey, life gets in the way sometimes! The honor went to kale for being the first of the year. I also bought probably the only pack of seeds I plan on buying this year and they were fava beans from OSC. Last fall I bought a seed keeper book from Lee Valley (love it!) and after organizing my seeds in it during the winter I realized I'm actually well stocked. I'll be buying more transplants this year, specifically tomatoes and herbs, just to make sure I have enough room for the other seedlings.

Kale seeds from OSC

2011 Garden List

So I've finally narrowed down my list of things to grow this year, some I'll be starting from seed and some from transplants:

- green beans (bush)

- scarlet runner beans

- fava beans

- carrots

- tomatoes (4)

- cayenne peppers (2)

- jalapeño peppers (2)

- mini bell peppers (2)

- basil

- parsley

- thyme

- chives

- beets

- zucchini (1)

- cucumber (4)

- lettuce

- potatoes

- rosemary

- winter squash (bush) (1)

- kale (2)

- peas

- spinach

- swiss chard

Seeing it all listed out makes it look more than when I have them placed in my raised bed planting plans. I plan on growing the herbs (except for basil and rosemary) in hanging baskets off our deck, this worked out great the past 2 years. I plant on buying transplants for the herbs and tomatoes, besides that I'll be starting everything by seed. This weekend I'll be planting some kale, although I'm only going to have 2 or 3 plants which I plan on planting in my actual garden, not in the raised beds. I found the 2 plants I had last year lasted me well into the fall and were pretty the whole time!

My 2011 Lee Valley catalogue came in the mail yesterday and I've already found a few things I'd purchase, maybe for my birthday if I'm lucky. I did however find a good deal on a six pack of gardening gloves from Costco so that was my first official garden purchase of 2011. I shouldn't have to purchase too many seeds this year, I've got quite a good collection going already and some friends ready to seed swap. I can already tell that the days are getting longer!!!

June 2010 Garden

Fast forward to a month later at the end of June and here are some updates on the backyard garden, things were finally starting to get growing!!!

This is my potato experiment where I planted 3 of my purple seed potatoes in this flexible tote with holes drilled in the bottom. As the plants grew I just added more soil to the tote.
After they flowered I actually ended up getting these tomato looking like fruits which I found out later are poisonous to eat and usually don't appear, they need just the right conditions to form. These fruits actually have the lots of tiny potato seeds.

This was another one of my patio experiments, I planted 2 small sugar pumpkins in this large pot and added a small trellis for them to climb. I actually was able to grow 2 small cantaloupe sized pumpkins! I plan on growing these again this year but in the garden.

Here's the 4x4 bed after the broccoli was done, the kale ended up going all the way into fall which was awesome! The peas were amazing! This was the first year I grew them and will definitely grow them again this year but in the 8x4 bed so I get more of them. I actually had some garlic and onions in the cells to the left which were alright but this year I'm going to make a conscious effort to grow a full bed of garlic.

Pea close up shot, these are the Homesteader (Lincoln) midseason peas.

Here's the 8x4 raised bed which was in full tilt. The zucchini and mystery squash, which ended up being a calabash or bottle gourd. I didn't attempt to eat them but they are edible. There are some green bush beans in here too which I plan on planting again this year along with some free marigold seeds I grew that I got at the Canada Blooms convention in Toronto.

Close up of the mini bell peppers, I had a few that turned orange but we ate most of them green.

The perennial garden was getting full too, the raspberries were sending up lots of new shoots and I planted some runner beans on poles in the back.

Finally, this was a new garden addition that I put in the summer, this is my hosta garden. I wasn't sure how well things would grow back here since I thought it would be too shady for most things, hence the hosta garden, but to my surprise things thrived back here! This where I'm going to just let the pumpkins run wild and see what they do.

May 2010 Garden

Last year was a year of weddings for us so blogging about my backyard garden took a backseat on the priorities list. I did however continue to take some photos when I could, below are a few to show the progress in May 2010.

This was the garden in the front of my house when the tulips were up.

I found some iris bulbs in the back of the empty lot next to us last year so I planted them to see what would come up and they grew into these lovely large purple blooms!

This is the 4x4 raised bed in the backyard in May, the kale and broccoli were loving life and the peas were up.

This is the 8x4 raised bed where I had just planted the tomatoes in the back, peppers in front of them, then the mystery squash and zucchini, and finally beets, mesclun mix, and carrots in the front.

Finally the perennial bed with the raspberries on the sides, red currant bush in the back, rhubarb in the front, and some strawberries mixed in that I grew in pots the previous year.