Woo-hoo! I finally have over half my garden planted. That’s an exciting milestone for me, given that the seeds I started indoors all died. Sheesh! I started over with plant starts. Some organic, but not all. I did what I could to have an organic garden, but $1.49 per start vs $7.00 per start tipped the scale more toward conventional ones. At least the growing conditions will be organic for all of them, regardless of how they started.
Row of tomato plants in my straw bale garden
So far I have seven tomato plants – regular tomatoes (Better Boy and Early Girl), roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, purple tomatoes, and yellow tomatoes. I have NO idea if the different colors taste different from each other, but this is the year I get to find out! They are all still small, but one already has blossoms on it. No idea why, hopefully that is heralding a good growing season for tomatoes.
I have three green bell pepper plants, and one sweet yellow pepper plant. I only like the green ones in the bell pepper family, but my husband likes them all, so I include a few extra for him. I’m still looking for a healthy jalapeno pepper start, but have not found one yet. The green peppers I have are all California Wonder, I have no idea what it is about them that makes everyone around here carry that type and only that type.
I have six bunches of three onions apiece. Don’t know why they’re sold like that, but there was no way of separating the individual onions without tearing roots. So I left them that way. I want to be sure they have enough room to expand as they grow, so they are planted in the 3-inch space between the bales of straw. I just filled it with compost and topsoil, and used loose straw to hold it in place.
The tomatoes, peppers, and onions together will be made into a BUNCH of salsa. We eat salsa like it’s going out of style, and we love my homemade pico de gallo and salsa. So whatever we don’t eat fresh will likely be made into salsa and canned for storage. If there is anything left after that it will likely be dehydrated for later use in stews.
I have lots of green beans, specifically bush beans. I already have lost count, I think about 10 plants. I want to get more of those, because I have such lovely childhood memories of home canned green beans. The texture was difficult to get past, but once I did that the taste was so wonderful. This is what I would love to have so much of that I can preserve enough to eat all year.
I have one chunk of “volunteer” beans. They sprouted in my compost pile from large whiteish-colored beans. I have NO idea what kind of beans they are! But beans are beans, and they must be edible since they sprouted from a restaurant’s kitchen scraps. So the chunk of compost came out in one piece, and I put it into an empty spot in my garden. They’re beside the green beans so they can make use of the trellis with them if they need it. I’ll know what they are and how to prepare and eat them after they produce. A little mystery is nice to have in life, isn’t it?
One of my favorite vegetables is cauliflower. Drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with garlic and rosemary, and baked in a 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes – YUM! So it’s no surprise that I have six cauliflower starts in my garden. I want more, but cauliflower isn’t my hubby’s favorite vegetable, so I’ll have to see how much room I have left when I get everything we’ve agreed on planted.
I have barley, too. I was feeding my chickens some barley and I wondered if it was alive enough to be sprouted, so I tried. Dumped a handful on a plate and added some water – and they sprouted! They grew so quickly that the roots quickly tangled, and I had to move them in one sheet to a planter of potting soil. When they had grown about 4 inches tall I dumped them out of the planter and into an empty triangular space in my garden where some bales leaned against each other. The picture didn’t turn out though, I’ll try again when it’s taller and looks a little less like a patch of grass between three straw bales.
I included on zucchini plant. It’s an experiment to see if I can grow plants in a straw bale that is stood up on end (instead of laying flat on the ground). I won’t mourn the zucchini if it doesn’t make it, but it can help suppliment the rabbits’ diets if it does grow. Again, NO idea if this will work, but it was worth a try and it would be great to know if standing bales on end would work for some areas with little square footage of ground.
And lastly are the herbs. Rosemary, dill, thyme, basil, and chives. I have never been good at growing herbs, not even the “easy” home kits of them they sell for children. But these haven’t died yet! I’m rather excited about that.
Still on my list to get and plant are peas (hopefully sugar snap), more beans, more green peppers and onions, and all the leafy greens that won’t go in until the cooler weather starts. Lettuce, spinach, kale, cabbage, swiss chard – ones like that.
Want to see more pictures? Here are the best ones so far:
Row of herbs
Bell pepper
Bush beans
The “volunteer” beans
Cauliflower start – so tiny!
Tomato plant, with blossoms
Zucchini plant – and yes, that’s a rabbit behind it.
Yep, discussion. On how much food I like to keep available at any one time vs the available space in the kitchen. The food has rather taken over the kitchen, and even taken over part of the garage. I’m not one of those end-of-the-world preppers! But I do believe in buying things when they’re on sale so that I don’t have to pay full price later. But there have been some good sales lately, so everything is rather overflowing with food.
And a garden. Plus the eggs from the laying hens. Plus the chickens we butchered last year that we haven’t finished eating yet. So a lot of food.
