What's growing on...

Now that people are home due to the corona virus pandemic people seem to be doing more baking and gardening. It definitely was nice having everyone home to help spread the mulch (we got most of it done in a matter of 2-3 hours) however I still can't seem to find anyone in my house willing to help me plant pea seeds.  

First off whats growing on outside.... the nights are still going down to freezing so while we have had some great sunny weather I really can't start to much outside....

I have finally figured out how to make Egyptian walking onions work for me. I like to mulch my vegetable beds with woodchip mulch and I have found that egyptian walking onions really don't seem to like that. So when they produce bulbs instead of letting them "walk" I collect them and plant them in areas with little or no mulch. 

My garlic are doing really well... you can see some bare spots in the garden bed and that is where one of my dogs trampled through it soon after planting. (so annoyed!)

Last summer I had found a horseradish root at my local grocery store that was budding and decided to just throw it in a pot and see what happens.  It really had not grown very much last summer so I just left it in the pot over the winter.  I don't know if its typically this hardy or if its because we had a very mild winter but it has sprouted again.  

So last summer my father made me a raised bed for my asparagus. I don't really like cooked asparagus however raw freshly picked asparagus is really quite delicious. I'm excited to have a dedicated space for my asparagus. Since this is a new asparagus bed most of the plants are too young to pick but I was able to harvest a few stalks from some of my older plants. 

This is my reliance grape vine... last year was the first year it flowered and beared fruit. However I really don't know how to take care of this plant (the fruit spoiled before it was ripe enough to eat). Now that I have a little bit of time while I am home I should try and figure this plant out.  

I found these awesome poly tunnels on amazon last year and I really love them.  They are great for hardening off plants. As long as the night time temperatures are not freezing I can stick my plants under here and not worry about wind burn or sun burn. 

Lot of avid gardeners have been talking about how there will be more people starting vegetable gardens or "Victory Gardens" due to the COVID-19 pandemic and how they will sell out of the desirable varieties. Honestly COVID-19 or not I always worry about my favorite varieties selling out.  So this year I was calling my favorite garden store regularly to see when their tomatoes came in. Once they were in I donned my facemask, carried my lysol with me and went to get my tomato and eggplants. I won't put these in the ground yet but I will keep them under the poly tunnel and when nighttime temps are too cold I bring them inside. 

Here are the varieties pictured here:

-Jimmy Nardello Sweet Pepper (son loved this one)

-Ichiban Eggplant

-Black Beauty Eggplant

-Box Car Willie Tomato (this is a normal size tomato)

-Sungold cherry tomato (we love these so I buy two plants)

-East Indian lemon grass 

-Stevia (kids love this)

I've also purchased a number of plants online from Burpee as well. Here are the varieties I ordered that I've tried in the past and liked:

-Tomato, SuperSauce Hybrid

- Pepper, Sweet, Jungle Parrot 

-Hot, Poblano (Ancho) Pepper

-Shooting Stars Eggplant

Here are the varieties I've ordered that I will be trying for the first time (so I have no idea how good they will be):

-Gold Standard Hybrid sweet pepper

-Burpee's Big Boy® Hybrid Tomato

- Meatball Hybrid eggplant

Here are the plants I am starting from seed indoors (I recently started working full time so I didn't want to start too much at home). First are these mighty grape hybrid tomato plants. They are my daughters favorite and apparently Burpee has discontinued them. I had a few seeds left and decided to grow them at home. 

These chillis are an Indian variety we use in making our home made spice blends (don't ask me the name... I call it "aamchi mirchi" which translates to "our chilli"). My goal is to be able to make bottles of chilli powder with these so both me and my father have these growing indoors.

Somehow I ended up growing a few plants indoors, I've really tried to minimize how many plants I bring inside over the winter but somehow I just can't help myself.  My kids like to do random things with this aloe plant so I've kept it alive. I've also brought in a curry leaf plant and some west indian lemongrass root, both are alive but look miserable (so I am not sharing pictures of those).  

Anyhow, so thats where things are now. I am really eager for the night time temps to warm up because the weather really has been great for working outside.  I still need to start my cucumbers, basil, beans and peas. (I start all but the peas indoors) however I'm sure I will get to it soon.