The lone pepper

For some reason I only got one pepper from my yellow bell pepper plant (it turned out more orange). I picked it, moved the plant to a sunnier spot, and ta-da! I have lots of baby bell peppers growing now. Only problem is we're going to get our first frost in a week or two...

After months and months of doing absolutely nothing, the jalapeno plant is finally producing. I've got... wait for it... one pepper

I've heard jalapenos like dry conditions, which is a bummer because I've been so faithfully watering it all summer. Oh well. Such is gardening... such is life...

Time for tomatoes!

I have two heirloom tomato plants growing in the garden - an Early Girl and a Cherokee Purple (yes, purple).

Now, I know what you're thinking - purple tomatoes?! But hey, that's part of the fun of growing your own food, you get to experience varieties you wouldn't normally find at the grocery store. 

These little beauties are the sweetest tomatoes I've ever tasted.

They're more purple in real life...

I also have a Cherry 100 growing in the Topsy Turvy. I practically killed this one early in the season (it went through several snowstorms and freezes) but it's amazing how well it's doing. There's nothing better than a hot, ripe, juicy tomato right off the vine....

One big problem I've encountered is tomato blight.. aka slow, painful death. They're still pumping out lots of tomatoes though (if not a little on the small side)...

I did also spot blossom end rot on one of my early girls. Just one, thankfully.

After more than three months of waiting, I now get to savor these amazing fruits. I'm also finding creative ways to use them every day - like tomato and goat cheese appetizers on crusty italian bread. 

 This one looks more purple than in the previous picture

Digging for buried treasure

Or potatoes rather.

It's strangely satisfying, plowing into the dirt with a large shovel, uncovering these little jewels. I've dug up the area a couple of times and I keep finding more of them!

 I just have to point out the peanut-shaped one on the end

Although I wish many of them had grown bigger, the quarter-sized ones will work perfectly in soups and stews (no slicing required). A couple of factors I think contributed to the overall smaller size:

*not enough consistent sunlight

*soil wasn't deep/loose enough

*probably would have been good to add some phosphorous since my soil is very nitrogen-heavy

Considering all my folly, the harvest wasn't too bad. Potato soup anyone?

Windowsill herb garden

After many (failed) attempts at growing herbs in the front window boxes (not enough sunlight out there), I finally found a better home for them inside on a sunny windowsill in the kitchen.

First up we have rosemary. This is the most low-maintenance plant ever. Loves dry and sunny places and looks and smells like a miniature Christmas tree. I use it in most baked dishes (like chicken pot pie, pork roast... yum).

Next comes oregano, great for all things Italian. Isn't this the most beautiful oregano you've ever seen?? The leaves are soft and fuzzy.

German thyme - great for fall cooking. It kind of looks like an afro right now...

I love using peppermint in smoothies, desserts, coffee and homemade tea. It has a wonderful soothing effect on your tummy and digestive tract...

And finally the basil... it's been a battle to keep these little guys alive. I planted THREE rounds of basil outside, only to discover three times some animal had eaten all of my baby seedlings overnight. Finally, I wised up and started them inside...

I've also got lavender randomly growing out by the garden. Not sure why it didn't make it in the house... but the lavender is doing a great job at attracting beneficial bees to my veggies. I'm going to try a lavender tea cookie recipe... can't wait.

Fun with Squash: The guessing game

I currently have five (i think) types of squash plants growing in the garden. They are all currently growing like weeds and bursting through the garden fence and into the rest of the yard.

 

Three of the plants I'm sure are zucchini squash - "Cocozelle" to be precise. They're a different variety of zucchini and have beautiful light green stripes on the fruit.

I'm pretty sure one of the plants is a butternut squash. This one has been growing horizontally, latching on to other plants with it's tentacle like feelers and taking half of the garden hostage. But I do love butternut squash soup...

Teeny Tiny Butternut

This is the mystery squash. I think this one came from my coworker, Sherri, and I originally thought it was an acorn squash. It grows more vertical, like the zucchini. But there's a cylinder-shaped squash that appeared overnight - looks nothing like an acorn squash. Sherri said it might even turn out to be a canteloupe or watermelon. We shall see... what fun!

Leftovers

I've been wondering what to do with all of my spinach, now that's it's ready to bolt and go to seed any day now. What does one do with daily handfuls of spinach?

Enter the Green Smoothie! Now, this concoction may look disgusting (I was tempted to throw it away after I blended it up for the first time), but not only is it super nutritious, it actually tastes great! Plus it's a great, frugal way to use up any extra greens you have in the garden or laying around in the fridge.

Ingredients:

1-2 cups of fresh greens - spinach, chard, lettuce, or any combination

1/4 cup juice (o.j. works great)

*Blend together greens with juice until well blended. Warning: at this point it will look gross. Just forget your instincts and keep going.

2 or more cups of frozen fruit (I use a combination of bananas, berries, and/or nectarine slices I have collected in my freezer)

2 T yogurt or milk

*Blend together with greens

I also add in:

1-2 tablespoons of honey

1/4 cup freshly ground flax seeds

Peppermint sprigs

Ta-da! A delicious snack that's a also powerhouse of nutrients.

Infection

My garden is infected. I'm pretty sure I've got powdery mildew on the butternut squash leaves, probably cause by overhead watering since I'm too cheap to buy a soaker hose system. I cut off the infected plants which hopefully solved the problem. If it continues to spread I'll have to take some serious action.

Note the white splotches...

I also pulled out a few potato plants because of suspected potato blight. Apparently this is a very, very bad year for potato and tomato blight. I'm not taking any chances - at the first sign of possible infection I'm ripping those suckers out of the ground.

On the upside, I did a little digging around and found a whole pile of potatoes! Hooray!!

 

I also spotted some zucchini growing the other day... 

Fun Fact #3 - Onions

Did you know "green onions" (aka scallions) are just the top part of an onion plant? Scallions are the part that grow above the ground while the onion bulb grows at the root. I've left most of the onions underground to get bigger but I'll take few scallions here and there when I need them. It's an amazing two-for-one veggie!

Using some of this fun fact in dinner tonight...

A big thanks to Cathay for donating all her onion "leftovers" to my garden!

Garden successes

Two months into the garden, things have really started to take off. The broccoli plants have given me the most this season so far, with a supply of around 10 or so small heads per week. Some sort of insect creature is attacking it, though, so I may have to replant.

It's harvest time for the romaine lettuce...

Zucchini squash has only been growing a few weeks and it's huge! It's competing with the potatoes for the fastest growing plant award.

The first tiny tomato - I believe this one is the Early Girl heirloom I got from a local nursery.

My daily Oregon Snow Pea harvest - which is becoming smaller and smaller every day. I've been freezing them for a continuous summer supply.

The spinach is starting to bolt because of the heat, so I'm going to harvest it all and put in some Ruby Swiss Chard instead.

Front to back - lettuce, spinach, 1/2 row of bush bean starts, and dying snow pea vines

My most recent problematic encounters have been the bugs feeding on the foliage (they sure are hungry) and the weeds which, mercilessly, seem to sprout back up a day after I pull them out. It's been really really hot (100 degrees last week!) and dry (your typical Colorado summer), so daily watering is a must. Can't wait to see what the water bill looks like this month! :)

Pea Time

I didn't think our snow pea vines were going to make it through the early season heat, but they proved me wrong. All of a sudden we got a bunch of little white flowers, which turned to pea pods practically overnight (pretty cool to watch how fast they grow).

 You pick snow pea pods before the peas actually develop inside the pod - while they are still nice and flat. They taste great right off the vine but I'm going to throw some in our thai pasta dish this week.

Overall I'm very impressed with this vegetable - it produced despite the unfavorable weather conditions. I'm going to plant a second round in mid-July for a second (and hopefully larger) Fall harvest. 

Fun Fact #2 - Potatoes

Here's something I bet you didn't know about potatoes: as potato plants grow, you're supposed to pile up soil on the plant, a process called "hilling." You do this right after the plant emerges and continually throughout the season.

Since potatoes grown beneath the soil, hilling gives them more room to produce larger tubers and keeps them from popping up out of the soil, which can turn them green and toxic (no poisonous spuds for me, thank you). 

Now that my potato plants are waist high, my only question is where can I get more dirt?

I've also noticed that the Yukon gold potato plants are producing white flowers, and the red potatoes have purple flowers. Although they seem to be doing great, I realized potatoes require a bit of faith - there's no way to know if there are any spuds actually growing down there. I'll have to dig around in a few weeks and see...

Yukon gold potato flower

 Red potato flower

You can also grow potatoes in garbage cans and old tires, check it out:

http://www.thegardenhelper.com/potato2.html

What I learned about spinach

It may just be the crazy weather here, but my first experience with growing spinach in the Spring didn't produce great results. Spinach needs cool temperatures to grow, but warm enough soil temperatures to germinate. The season started out okay (minus the snow) but this year it has gotten so hot so quickly, our Spring was basically nonexistent. The seedlings have been growing for quite some time and are still pretty tiny. Now, this may also be due to the fact that they were nibbled on by some kind of critter early on.

All in all, not a whole lot of spinach being eaten so far. I have gotten to pick some leaves here and there to throw in pastas and on sandwiches, but not quite as much as I was hoping for.

Fresh spinach, basil, and oregano from the garden - a perfect addition to my Vodka Pasta

(more on herbs later!) 

If at first you don't succeed, try try again, and I plan on doing just that in the Fall when the soil's nice and warm but temps are starting to cool down.

Fun Fact #1 - Broccoli

This week we got our first broccoli harvest. The heads are much smaller than you find in the store, but I went ahead and harvested some of our biggest ones before the weather turned hot (it got above 90). If it gets too hot, broccoli will bolt, which means it will look like this:

Doesn't even remotely look like broccoli anymore. The good thing about this veggie is that after you harvest the first head, smaller heads will develop around the perimeter of where you made the cut.

This means the plant will keep producing yummy broccoli all summer long, and even into the fall I'm told. We don't end up with huge heads here because our cool growing season isn't very long. Broccoli can actually freeze solid and be perfectly fine once it thaws out. The champion of all veggies!

Y

Yum!

By the way, we ate the broccoli raw and it was delicious.

Critter control and summer veggies

This weekend we put up netting over the spinach, lettuce, and peas to keep the critters out. I couldn't find any bird-squirrel-bunny-deer netting so I hope this will work. My next-door neighbor actually offered to “assist” with the critter control using his bee-bee gun, but I don't think I want to be responsible for ordering a mass squirrel execution.

Now that the weather is finally warming up, we planted squash (acorn and butternut, compliments of my coworker - thanks Sherri!), zucchini, two types of tomatoes, jalapeno and sweet peppers, and carrots. These veggies can't tolerate cold temperatures or frosts or they'll keel right over. On the other hand, the broccoli, spinach and peas can't tolerate hot temperatures. So now I can’t decide if I want it to be warm or cold outside. Luckily springtime in Colorado can give us both, sometimes in the same day.

Kyle enjoys the summer-like weather after a hard day's work in the garden

Uh-Oh

Something is snacking on my garden. It could be birds, squirrels, or bunnies. Notice the teeth marks below.

Bunnies are cute and all, but I would like to eat my spinach too. They are gnawing away at everything, it's like a bunny bistro back there. Time for desperate measures...

It's arrived

We have broccoli! The florets are beginning to show themselves.

Who knew this is what broccoli looks like before it's chopped off and shipped to the supermarket?

Peas are coming along nicely. And the potatoes - I've never seen anything grow this fast! Seems all that wet spring snow did them good.

Snow peas

 Potatoes

Whew

Everything seemed to survive the spring snowstorm. Next time I'll quit worrying, stay inside with a cup of hot cocoa and leave them to play in the snow.

The white stuff

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Just when the hot, sunny days start to lull you into a false sense of security, mother nature strikes.

Woke up this morning to a whole lot of white stuff on the ground. How (HOW???) can it be 80 degrees yesterday afternoon and be snowing by this morning? I thought it had to be below 32 degrees for the snow to stick to the ground. Apparently not.

6:45am, me outside in my woollies (and getting soaked) trying to locate my broccoli plants and dig them out of the snow. Got every large pot, pan and bowl I own and covered them up before the weight of the wet spring snow completely crushed them. Hopefully it will melt later today and I can see how much damage has been done. I’m pretty sure my neighbors think I’m insane digging around in the snow first thing in the morning.

I can see this is just the beginning of gardening in Colorado.

Tomato woes

Thought I could get a jump start on tomatoes by starting one in our topsy turvey hanger thing. My brilliant idea – we can hang it outside during the day, and bring it inside at night when it freezes.  Better in theory than in actuality.

Didn’t realize the thing would weigh 50 pounds. Took us a whole weekend to install hooks and find studs that could handle the weight. Then I realized there’s no way I’m strong enough to transport the thing back and forth every day for the next two months. Then I got carried away and over-watered it – it’s been dripping for two days…

Probably should have just waited until it’s warm enough. Lesson learned.

The good news is my tulips are up!

Faith like potatoes...?

Not much gardening being done on the weekends – it’s cold and wet. Frantically trying to get cool weather crops in the ground in the evenings after work, my only window of dry, sunny weather so far this spring. Apparently peas were supposed to be planted in March. Really? March?? Everything is still frozen in March. Oh well.

We now have scallions, red onions, and lettuce. The peas are growing like champs, as well as the broccoli. Spinach and onion seedlings are poking hopefully out of the ground. I’ve had to look up pictures on the internet so I know what the plants are supposed to look like. Believe me, the seedlings look nothing like the grown-up plant. Hard to imagine these spindly little green shoots will be a head of spinach in a month or two. That is, if I don’t kill them before then.

 Oregon Snow Peas

Spinach sprouting

Potato?

I can’t quite tell if the stuff growing in the potato bed are weeds or potato plants. I do know that they are quite fuzzy. As much as I desperately want to pull out every little thing that dares to invade my garden space, I must resist until I can make sure I’m not single-handedly demolishing all my hard work. I was inspired to plant potatoes after watching the amazing movie faith like potatoes.