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.

BOOK REVIEW: Michael Pollan Books-Part 2: Cooked A Natural History of Transformation

I know it has been 2 years since I started this review but Part two of my Michael Pollan book review series is on the book Cooked A Natural History of Transformation.  If you missed the first part on The Omnivore's Dilemma you can find it here (or if you just forgot since its been so long). While Omnivores Dillemma was a must read book because of its huge impact on food politics in this country, Cooked was the book I needed in my life. Essentially this book is about the lost art of cooking. 

Who needs to read this book: Anyone who gets stressed out from cooking. People who like to cook will find this book interesting . 

What are four "Perspectives" in this book: 

• Fire: Fire focuses on the "real" way to cook southern whole pig barbeque. If you eat meat I don't know how you can read this chapter and not have a craving for good pulled pork.
• Water: This focuses on braising food. Seriously I will never look at sauteeing onions the same way again.
• Air: BAKING BREAD!!! I love love loved this section...more so because this was something I could try out in my own house. I went to whole foods asked the baker for some of his sour dough starter (he was great he brought me into the back of the bakery and showed me the "mother"). I started storing my real "whole grain" flour in the fridge and  I went through a phase where the only bread in the house was bread that I baked. That had to be put on hold though when I gained 5 lbs just from all the bread I was baking.  Now days I don't bake as much bread but the whole experience reminded me the importance of real "whole grain" flour and now I try to make chapatis at least once a week (chapati flour is a true whole grain flour). 
• Earth:  This section is about fermenting foods, specifically vegatables (think pickle, kimchi etc.), animals (i.e. milk into cheese) and Alcohol (no explanation needed).  I am a smelly cheese junkie so the section on raw milk cheese had me heading to Whole foods cheese counter. One of these days I will make my own mozzerella but for now, Whole foods cheese counter is going to have to do.

If you don't like to read... but are interested in this-  Once again I have two options for you. 

1) The audio book (for my local friends, yes our local library system has this book both paper and audio). This was one of my favorites because Michael Pollan himself was narrator for this audio book. You don't often get to hear an author read there own work (at least I don't) and hearing the exclamations and inflections come straight from the author himself was really great.

2) Watch  Cooked on Netflix this is a four episode series on Netflix (one series for each "Perspective" in the book). As with most film adaptations of books, they do not go into nearly as much depth as the book however they are still really fun to watch, In each of the the netflix episodes he adds some of his other research not discussed in the book: dubba wallas of Mumbai, India, a Aboriginal tribe in Australia, traditional bread making in Morrocco, fermenting Cacao beans in the amazon, and other traditional alcohol fermenting culture none of which are mentioned in the books. 


Some of my favorite quotes:

"How is it that at the precise historical moment when Americans were abandoning the kitchen, handing over the preparation of most of our meals to the food industry, we began spending so much of our time thinking about food and watching other people cook it on television? The less cooking we were doing in our own lives, it seemed, the more that food and its vicarious preparation transfixed us."

"The very same activity that many people regard as a form of drudgery has somehow been elevated to a popular spectator sport. "

Book Review: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

Six years ago I gave up a career in pharmaceutical research to stay home and take care of my kids.... at the time I "fell" into geriatric pharmacy because it afforded me a flexibility I could never get in research (contract or otherwise).

 The change in my life was surreal... aside from the obvious financial changes... I went from business class international travel, a window office and meeting thought leaders in various medical fields..... to driving all over the state, trying to find space for my laptop at the often cramped nurses station, and trying to explain to the elderly demented woman that this was her home now (because shes been driving the nurses and staff bonkers coming every 5 minutes making up stories on how she has to get home to cook dinner for her kids... who she thinks are still 8 years old).

So when I heard about "Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End" I said.... ahhh I don't need to read this... I live it!  Boy was I wrong. One day I was driving my father to one of his doctor appointments and on a complete whim I put the audio version of this book on hold at my local library.  One morning I woke up to find the libary pinging my phone telling me that the audio version was now available for download. I wasn't "reading" anything at the time so click..... I downloaded the book and started listening to it on my drive to work.

I quickly realized that even if you know anything about care for the aging this book is one of those eye openers. Gawande goes back through the socioeconomic evolution of how aged people lived in the past.  He explains that the problems we face now days in terms of dealing with aging is just natural because our global population has evolved. Gawande's grandfather himself worked till the day he died at the ripe old age of 110.  Naturally he goes through the biological changes associated with aging. He points out that we understand aging better now because there are more people reaching old age.  He talks about how nursing homes evolved... even more insteresting how assisted living facilities evolved, and all the while sharing examples... back stories, real life examples.  Including the story of his aging own father. Despite the fact that his father, mother and he himself are all doctors practicing medicine in the US they still were overwhelmed with what to do in dealing with his fathers condition and with all the research he did for this book there were points where he still did not make the "right" decision for his father.  This brought back memories of my own grandfathers passing and how at the time I could not understand how my family was letting him continue to suffer with enteral tubes and the like. This book spoke to my heart.

Who needs to read this book: Anyone with parents over the age of 60 that are still alive. We are part of the "sandwich" generation, who find themselves caring for their own children and trying to meet the needs of aging parents. I think for us its important to have more compassion for the changes going on in our parents lives. I am not sitting here and saying flip your life completely upside down for them.... Gawande shares an example of a woman who did just that for her aging father and showed how royally that can backfire. But really to remember sometimes dignity is more important than safety and to accept the changes that are happening in their lives. (I know that I have not always been accepting of the changes going on in my own parents lives).

I will leave you with some of my favorite quotes from the book.....

“A few conclusions become clear when we understand this: that our most cruel failure in how we treat the sick and the aged is the failure to recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer; that the chance to shape one’s story is essential to sustaining meaning in life; that we have the opportunity to refashion our institutions, our culture, and our conversations in ways that transform the possibilities for the last chapters of everyone’s lives.”

"Assisted living is harder than assisted death."

"Technological society has forgotten what scholars call the “dying role” and its importance to people as life approaches its end. People want to share memories, pass on wisdoms and keepsakes, settle relationships, establish their legacies, make peace with God, and ensure that those who are left behind will be okay. They want to end their stories on their own terms. This role is, observers argue, among lifes most important for both the dieing and those left behind and if it is, the way we deny people this role out of obtuseness and neglect is cause for everlasting shame.  Over and over we in medicine inflict deep gauges in peoples lives and then stand oblivious to the harm done."

“Being mortal is about the struggle to cope with the constraints of our biology, with the limits set by genes and cells and flesh and bone. Medical science has given us remarkable power to push against these limits, and the potential value of this power was a central reason I became a doctor. But again and again, I have seen the damage we in medicine do when we fail to acknowledge that such power is finite and always will be. We’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. Those reasons matter not just at the end of life, or when debility comes, but all along the way. Whenever serious sickness or injury strikes and your body or mind breaks down, the vital questions are the same: What is your understanding of the situation and its potential outcomes? What are your fears and what are your hopes? What are the trade-offs you are willing to make and not willing to make? And what is the course of action that best serves this understanding?”

What's growing on.... Reflection on 2018 and Looking forward to 2019

So I am gearing up for the next grow season and I am acutely aware of the fact that I did not blog about my garden even once last year. It doesn't mean that I didn't garden. It just means that life really has gotten busy.  Last spring/summer I needed to help my father with his health problems and my kids now have busy schedules so extra energy usually goes into supporting them as much as I can.  This doesn't stop my gardening, but it did mean I had to change how I approach my garden.  The garden needed to go on auto pilot to some extent.

So as I get ready for the next garden season I thought I'd share a little bit of how 2018 went and what that means for 2019.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes is always a good place to start. One of the first signs that 2018 was not going to be a normal grow season for me was that all of my seedlings died.  They died for a few reasons, first I wasn't able to keep on top of the watering but that usually isn't the biggest deal with tomatoes. What I think really did them in was the potting mix I used to pot them up. It had a fungus growing in it. (BTW I purchased it from Walmart!!!)   I didn't realize this until I started watering the soil/plants and since I was busy with my Dad I didn't have time to redo them.  I usually grow all of my tomatoes from seed so they were all LOST. This really threw me off because I have grown accustomed to using my own seedlings. I was beyond annoyed. Luckily for me I have two garden centers which grow good varieties of plants. My brother a Penn State Alumni bought me these Valentine grape tomato seeds early in the summer and this variety took off fast (it was warm by then) and lasted till November.

As the summer began I realized  I now have three people in my household who can eat a pint of cherry/grape tomatoes a day and two plants, even if prolific growers, just were not enough. So this year I plan to grow at lease three cherry/grape tomato plants.  I need to grow at least one red grape tomato plant and two sungold cherry tomato plants.  The grape tomatoe I need to start from seed because I don't like the ones they sell in the garden center. I like the Valentine grape from Johhnys seed or the Mighty grape hybrid from Burpee seeds (I'll probably start both of them).  The sungolds are available at the local garden center and its easier not having to fuss with hardening off 50 plants when you don't have time so I will probably just buy transplants those locally.

For big tomato varieties I grew San Marzano, Box car willie and Kelloggs breakfast and I will probably grow these again. We also had tomatoes from our CSA (community service agriculture) and so we were able to get in a few batches of sauce. San Marzano honestly is a great tomato plant, and  there is a reason why its so popular.  It was a solid producer and very reliable.  This was my first time growing Box Car Willie (pictured below), if you have ever watched the Praxxus55712 channel on youtube he loves this tomato.  It was definitely a good plant and one I will continue to grow.  Kelloggs breakfast is just one of those I won't stop growing, it wasn't a great year for it but its a great tomato so well worth it.

Last note on tomatoes..... The last two years I have grown tomatoes in grow bags so I can rotate soil within them and not physicially move them (it gets hard finding a location which can accommadate 6 ft tall plants with 8+hrs of sunlight). I am finding its really to much work to completely rotate the grow bag soil so next year the tomatoes are going back in the raised beds. I won't rotate them but what this means is that I really need to make a solid effort to keep the soil healthy, lots of mulch, lots of compost.

Grean Beans

So lets start with the fact I am not crazy about beans. I will eat them but they are not one of my go to vegatables. Last year I came to the realization that the other three members of my house LOVE beans. Boiled then sauteed in oil and garlic... 5 minutes later they are all gone.  So  I sowed some seeds straight into the garden and then bought a few flats of bush beans from the local garden store. It worked out well but it wasn't enough beans for my family. I actually got annoyed at my husband at one point because he came home from the grocery store with a bag of beans. He pointed out that they eat more than what I was growing. ( I ended up going out and buying more flats of bush beans)

So this year I will be experimenting with more beans, pole beans and bush beans. If there is a variety  you like please let me know. The great thing about beans is that they are great for soil health! I've never really supplemented my legumes with innoculum but since soil health is going to be a priority for me this year I think I will try growing the beans with inoculum and see how it goes. (Our soil is pretty sandy which is great for drainage but not great for plant nutrition).

One more thing I realized with beans (and cherry/grape tomatoes) is that they require much more effort to pick them. You really need to only pick one or two cucumbers to feed your family but with beans you spend more time picking the beans for one meal. So one thing I will try and do this year is to grow the beans and grape tomaties in a more accessible location so I can enlist the help of my kids to pick them.  My daughter will only pick tomatoes and that is if they are in an easy to access location (I may grow hers in a big pot on the deck, can't get easier than that). My son is actually into gardening but the last three summers it has been difficult for him to help me with other things going on in his life . I think I can find a way to build this into his summer routine. He tends to do better when their is routine/plan/schedule.

Cucumbers

Cucumber is one of those must grow vegatables. During the summer my family will inhale cucumbers. For whatever reason my cucumber seeds just didn't take well last year. When my seedlings died I direct sowed them but those took a while to take off. I ended up buying some plants from the garden center but honestly I really didn't like them as much as my own. Thank goodness I could supplement with cucumbers from my CSA (community service agriculture) because my family really does eat a lot of cucumbers. I think what I may do with cucumbers is not rotate them and give them a fixed location in one of my raised beds that I can cover in the spring. When I can throw a floating row cover to protect the seeds from the fluctuating spring temperatures they do much much better.

Eggplants

Eggplants have always been one of those plants that I can't grow well from seed. The last few years I have been buying transplants/seedlings from the local garden center.  I loved the two plants I had this year and may consider 2 of each of these this year. One was patio baby eggplant (pictured above) and the other was Shikou Asian Eggplant. One thing I find is that its better not to grow two eggplants together. I grow fewer eggplants mixed with other plants to prevent the bugs from eating them  up.  The Shikou plant was amazing, it must have been about 4 ft tall and kept producing till October.

Peppers

So all of my pepper seedlings died last year and I was completely dependant on the local garden centers. This worked out for everything except my ancho/poblano peppers. I really didn't like the variety I bought and I think I will put in the effort to grow these from seed because it is worth it. My husband and I enjoy making stuffed peppers and these anchos from Tomato growers are my favorites.

I also realized that my son loves eating sweet peppers (all my peppers are of the hot variety).  So I bought a flat of sweet pepper and that was a big hit.

Herbs

I had two huge wins this year on the herb front. One was this lettuce leaf italian basil ... loved it! I grew one square foot of it (pictured above) and it kept us well stocked of basil till the frost arrived. Second, I was finally successful at growing egyptian walking onions. This kept us well stocked with onion greens till December. I realized the success to this is that they need loose soil to grow into (I mulch everything so in the past it would have trouble "walking").
     

What's growing on....

 I feel like its been a little bit of a slow summer garden wise. I don't know if its because I'm busy and not spending enough time in the garden or because the weather keeps going up and down.

Garlic.... so I had this not so brilliant idea to let a pumpkin volunteer grow in my garlic patch with the logic that the pumpkin could take over the patch once the garlic was cleared. Big mistake.... the pumpkin took over well before most of the garlic were done. My russian inferno did great (first year ever, they are usually very very tiny!). This is a picture of my music garlic which I consider to be ok. The others are really small.  Then I went and mixed up my german reds and inchelium reds.. uuuugggghhh (my mom got a nice pile of garlic though).

Anyway, so I have saved seed garlic from: music, russian inferno, spanish roja, and chinese pinks  (the last two are abnormally small but I'll deal).  I am giving up on kettle river giant... it never grows more than once head... which I then replant... such a waste. And I bit the bullet and ordered some new seed garlic, specifically german red and inchelium red. Of course since I am ordering garlic I ordered a few more varieties specifically: Thai fire, Chesnok Red, and Asian tempest. So next year I will have 8 types of garlic.

Tomatoes.... Top left is a new variety for me, Oregon Spring. It is the first determinate tomato I've ever grown. You can actually see in the picture that it is starting to die, but it has put out a lot of tomatoes (I have about 2 dozen more that are ripening in my kitchen). The flavor is good but it is smaller than I'd hoped. Next year I may try growing this one in the ground, definitely a keeper though.

I am growing all of my tomatoes in grow bags or containers this year. It is always so hard rotating my tomatoes. They have very specific space requirements 2-3 sq. feet of garden space and then they grow at least 6 ft tall (on a bad year... much more than that on a good year).   So my logic is that I can keep the tomatoes in the same place year after year and just  dump the dirt from the tomato bags/ container into my pepper bed (they are both nightshades) and refill the bags each year. I don't know that that will work that smoothly (its a lot of soil!!!). Lets see.

Not sure if its the grow bags, the mix I put in the bags or the weather but my big indeterminate tomatoes are still ripening. I am growing: Red Rose, Kelloggs Breakfast, and San Marzano. The tomato on the lower left is the San Marzano. These are my first big tomatoes to ripen. I saved these seeds from a San Marzano plant my neighbor was growing last year. This plant is really doing so well. I'll save more seeds this year.

This year I limited myself to only two small tomato varieties: sun gold cherry (pictured lower right) and Mighty Sweet hybrid grape tomato (pictures upper right). The mighty sweet hybrid is doing really well. The sungold is producing but not as well as it normally does. My guess is that it doesn't  like the grow bag.

Indian Borage... this plant is doing so well. I really need to figure out what to do with it.

Mexican lime... is slow to develop fruit but it has fruit. (Sorry bad picture)

 My gotu kola plant has a lot of weeds this year. I need to figure out what to do about that.

Eggplant... This year all my eggplant are in containers and they are all doing great. I have decided that I am not going to bother starting these from seed any more. Like onions their seeds are too finicky in my hand and better starts are available in the store. I bought these as seedlings from Home depot (may have been during their Black Friday sale).

Cucumbers.... So I did some unintentional succession planting with my cucumbers.  I started my cucumbers under floating row covers outdoors. Every week or two if a seed didn't sprout I would resow the seed, I did this about three times.  It worked out in the end.

This year I tried one new cucumber variety, the Green Finger Cucumber from High Mowing organic seed.  I found these seeds at Wegmans. Love these don't they look beautiful (cucumber on the left)!!! Something has killed off my other two cucumber varieties (I assume its cucurbit downey mildew) and this one is still going strong. Not sure why but if this holds up we have another reason to grow more of these next year.

I no longer seed my Mexican Sour Gherkins they just come up as volunteers. I have two that are going strong, one I've trained up a trellis and the other one is choking my lemon balm (pictured on the left). I don't feel bad for the lemon balm, I was actually contemplating pulling it out (I have two and don't need two.).

Basil..... This basil is one I propagated from my hydroponic winter garden (my aerogarden). Definitely doing this again next year.

We interupt this blog post to give you an adorably cute picture of Lua. She was visiting us this weekend. She likes to look for "cave-like" spaces to relax in. This was one of her favorite spots yesterday when I was gardening.

Malabar spinach.... love the growth habit of this plant. It grows vertically, looks pretty, likes warmth but can take the weather fluctuations. This is my new green of choice in the garden.  I bought these as plant starts from a local nursery but I have one that started by accident. The seed fell into my lemon grass plant when it was indoors and when I planted it out it just took off. So I really should try direct sowing next year.

Peppers... Peppers are coming along slowly. I have added fertilizer, kept them watered, but its a slow season for these in my yard.  The chilli pictured on the right is a new one to me, its a Hot Lemon. The plant itself is double the size of all my other plants. I am waiting for the chillis to turn yellow, but I am excited about this one because the plant is gorgeous (next time I'll try and get a picture of the plant)!

Herb Garden... my son wanted to grow different kinds of mint. So he has been propagating various plants from cuttings. I am letting him plant them here in buried buckets and hoping to keep on top of them so they don't spread. (hoping!!!) I've also decided to add a few plants to bring in butterflys. I have a butterfly weed (aclepias tuberosa) and will move my butterfly bush here (it needed more space). I am also trying to start Egyptian walking onions here (not picture)... they are not doing spectacular... I will keep trying though.

Shiro Plum.... OH MY GOODNESS....  so excited about this. We had about 2-3 dozen plums this year, we picked the last of them last week. Actually I am guessing the birds picked the last half dozen last week but thats ok. We were able to eat most of them, so I am happy.

Not pictured... The one thing I am pretty disappointed about is that I have no cantaloupes this year. I love eating cantelope. My seedlings died from the cool spring, and I direct seeded a cantaloupe in a clear corner of the garlic bed but once again... the stupid pumpkin volunteer blocked it. Oh well, definitely learning more about how to use my space the better. No more squash or pumpkins... I don't have enough room for them.

What's growing on....

Ok... this may be a bit long but the weather has been absolutely gorgeous and from the extended forcast it looks like its here to stay.

Last year I took a different approach with growing basil. Continuing with the theme of  trying new things, this year I am trying to propagate cuttings from my hydroponic plant. So far so good. I hope to have a full blog post on this after I plant this out.

I made a new garden bed on this sloping section of my yard. At the bottom near the fence I have started planting my asparagus (which have long roots and are good for soil retention). I want to use the top of the garden bed for herbs.

Here are the herbs I've been collecting for this new garden bed: Left to Right: Lemon thyme and Lavendar (my son purchased these two from his schools plant sale... love this kid, he knows what his Mom likes), malabar spinach (ok not a herb this will go in my keyhole garden), tarragon, marjoram, broadleaf thyme (also known as Dodda Pathre in India), and curry. My plan is also to add a arp rosemary, english thyme, and egyptian walking onions (all of which can be perennials here in Zone 6).

 This is a highly neglected rosemary.... I'm hoping to transplant and  prune it...right now its looking pretty sad.

My local nursery was selling mature FLOWERING hardy kiwi plants for $150.... that inspired me to put some more energy into getting these hardy kiwis to flower.  I will get these to flower!!!

 Raspberries are trying to invade every possible space... I really should weed these more. I am sure I will pay the price later when I have to pull them out.

 You probably can't see them very well but my reliance grape plants are sprouting.... long story short. I moved one grape vine here last fall. (This area gets much more sun). Anyway the vine wasn't sprouting, so I ended up getting a second one from home depot.  Well now I have two sprouting vines that are too close together. Oh well... I am sure I'll regret this later but lets see what happens.

Planted out my chillis yesterday. Hopefully with this heat they will take off.

This is the other half of my chillis with two malabar spinach vines (or mayalu  (मायाळू) in Marathi)  growing in the back. I think the malabar spinach will like this location so much better since it has a tall trellis to grow on.

Not the best picture ever but here is my tomato lineup: Mighty grape hybrid, Sungold cherry, San Marzano, Oregon Springs, Red Rose and Kelloggs Breakfast. I am growing them in grow bags this year.  Yes they will be moved, they are not going to stay this close together.

Eggplant, so far only two. I'll probably squeeze a few more in when everything is planted out.

Comfrey.... I love this plant... it really worked out as a great fertilizer last year. My son started a batch of comfrey tea a month ago. Lets see how that works out... I am trying to avoid purchasing any more fertilizer.

These are my Snap peas that I am growing in my keyhole garden. They need to be trained up the trellis but otherwise they seem to be doing fine.

I have a ton of strawberries this year. The birdnetting is up but the birds have figured out a way under the bird netting.... I guess I'm going to have to anchor down the edges. I actually found a bird in the netting yesterday but I also wonder if the chipmunks are eating them? We'll see. I am nearing the end of my rope when it comes to strawberries. Not worth the fight in my opinion.

My daughter's fairy garden...its still a work in progress ... she grew whatever flower seeds she could find in my stash... so the little seedlings in the middle are nastratiums, Probably not the best thing for a fairy garden but oh well.

 This enormous sage plant is one of the first plants I ever bought years ago. I've let it go wild and it really has taken over this shady spot in my yard. I need to prune it. I suspect I'll have lots of little baby sage's when I'm done... anyone need sage?

Square food garden number one, this one has been under a floating row cover for a few weeks now. I think I can take the row cover off for good . The first row is onions, second rows is spinach, the third row has one square of kohlrabi with three squares of what I hope to be beans (I may need to reseed), and the fourth row is cucumber seedlings which are small but doing fine (because they have been under a row cover).

 This is my "worm bin".  I throw my kitchen scraps in here,  cover them with leaves and let the resident earthworms do their thing. The earth worms are so much more efficient than my compost bin. Those are raspberries surrounding my worm bin.

 Obligatory picture of my garlic in my second square foot garden.... really such an easy plant!!

Here are the rest of my seedling under a a shade cloth, acclimating to sun. I'll plant out the cucumbers and melons next week. So many extra chillis and tomatoes!!! Anyone want some!

I found a cheap mexican lime plant at a local nursery. I haven't had luck keeping limes alive in the winter but let see maybe third times the charm. (yes the lemongrass is photobombing the picture)

Gotu Kola is coming back. Yes there is a lot of clover,  however as I understand it clover is a good cover crop. So I am letting it stay in here,  at least till the Gotu Kola takes off.

 I started this hydroponic basil plant the first week in January and its still going... I get two large handfuls of leaves a week. I'll keep this going till the garden basil takes off. Speaking of which I really should sow my basil seeds soon., maybe next week.