The Garden is Planted

Last week, the girls and I started clearing out the weeds from our garden plot so we could plant for the season.  In the process, we discovered that some of our crops from last year had sprouted from seed, including two romaine lettuces, a lot of parsley, and some mint.  

romaine lettuce

mint crowded by parsley

Our oregano and rosemary survived the winter, as they usually do, and we even found a tiny bell pepper on one of last year’s plants!  Also, the eggplant is still green; I actually harvested an eggplant from it last month!  Even our grape vine has come back unexpectedly (it looked quite sad over the winter).

eggplant

In fact, most of our produce trees are fruiting, including the peach, fig, and lemon trees.  

peaches

fig

lemons

One of the blueberry bushes is flowering, as is the orange tree and the citronella (just in time for mosquito season).

blueberry

citronella

Saturday, we spent the entire day prepping our garden plot and planting.  We began with a trip to the farmer’s market, where I conversed with the tomato farmer and bought two of his heirloom seedlings: a cherry tomato and a stripe variety.  I was pleasantly surprised to meet someone who farms tomatoes exclusively, and enjoyed hearing his methods for nurturing tomato plants.  

We then headed over to our local home improvement store where we picked up more heirloom and cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, and hot peppers, all as seedlings.  After a final stop at my in-laws for a lemongrass seedling, we headed home to complete the clean up and plant our seedlings as well as the seeds we saved from last year and some we have bought the last few weeks.

In addition to the seedlings, we planted the following seeds: basil and more romaine (from seeds harvested last fall), salad bowl lettuce, kale, broccoli and carrots.  Some of these are cold weather crops, but we wanted to try them anyway.  Our weekend weather was crispy cool in the mornings and warm in the afternoons; perfect spring weather for planting.

We garden organically, so we usually spend time throughout the season weeding the plot.  This year, we are trying some preventative measures.  After planting the seedlings, we laid down newspaper and topped it with dried leaves.  You can barely see some of the tomato seedlings poking out above all that in the picture below. 

 

Here’s hoping for a bountiful season!  What are you planting this year?

Neighbors, if you want to start an herb garden, I have parsley, oregano, and rosemary seedlings.  If the basil comes up, I should have plenty of that, too.  Come on by to get some!