What's Growing On....

This years grow season was interupted by this little cutey.  He is a 9 week old German Shepard and by most accounts is a pretty mellow puppy (anyone who knows my husband knows she's probably following his lead). I had all these great visions of hanging out in the garden while the dog wanders about doing his business. Well this guy is obsessed with eating the dirt from my garden and since he can't seem to discriminate from my onion transplants from the fresh compost, my poor red onions are really taking a beating. So I will be trying to find new ways to get through to this dog that no he can't eat dirt from my garden.  Any advice or tips I am all ears!!!

Seedlings... I tried to grow almost everything from seed this year. Everything has pretty much been started and I am now in hardening off mode.  My general plan this year was to start new seedlings the first week of each month, according to this schedule: 1) January: Onions and Basil 2) February: Eggplant and Peppers 3) March: Tomatoes  4) April:  Cucumbers, melons (watermelon and cantaloupe), sugar pumpkin, peas, and cilantro.  This tent has been great for hardening off my seedling. I have no patience for carrying plants in and out of the house. So this has worked out great. April and May can be very windy here so I have had to weigh it down and tie it to the deck to prevent it from flying off

 I decided not to grow okra this year... last year I just didn't pick it in time, they were always too big and fibrous. The kids ate the small ones. Just not a great use of space. I am trying a few more things this year maybe I will come back to okra next year.                                                                       . 

I planted out my first tomato last week and another two tomatoes this weekend (it would have been more but the kids had birthday parties this weekend). I hope to have the last five planted out by mothers day. I am not going to be planting to many large heirloom tomatoes this year, and will try to stick to small varieties or hybrids. I decided that I will try growing one large heirloom and will keep it pruned to a single stem.  I have two large pine trees which put out bags and bags of these pine needles and after watching this video I decided to try mulching with it as well. 

Overwintered plants.....This rosemary plant was my star this winter. My lemongrass stalks, turmeric and curry leaf plant are doing fine, not as healthy and stellar as this rosemary though.  My lime, ginger, and two chillis died (I didn't have a good plant stand till the end of the winter and so they weren't getting sun).  I have decided to give up on trying to grow a lime tree for a while. I just seem to keep killing them over winter. I am bummed about that but maybe I just need to take a break from them for a bit (either that or convince my husband to let me build a permanent green house :) )

Garlics are going strong. I thought for sure they were going to be goners because the deer trampled through my raised beds this winter (for what I don't know they don't eat the garlic). So this spring I filled up the deer tracks with fresh compost, gave them some blood meal and they are taking off. This bed is completely dedicated to my alliums so you can see my onions transplants which are still settling in. The square in the front left corner of the bed is the one my puppy keeps eating out of.

I tried growing cauliflower and cabbage from seed and didn't have any  luck. So this year I bought some transplants from Home Depots spring Black Friday sale ($2 for a 6 pack you can't go wrong). Not sure whether it is just that the weather gets to hot too quickly for cauliflower. We'll see.

I have very little patience when it comes to hardening off plants, for these peas I decided to see what would happen if I just planted them straight out.... well they are still here and still growing. No signs of sun or wind damage so I consider this a success. I'd never do this to my tomatoes or other warm weather crops (I've learned that the hard way).









Anyway well thats about it for now. Hopefully the warm weather is hear to stay so I can plant out more things.

Favorite Plant Friday: Lemon grass

This is a post from last year where I was rooting the lemon grass stalk in plain water.

Below is a picture from last August when it was in the ground and the two stalks now have been grown considerably and the plant leaves were 3-4 feet tall. It is a beautiful plant.  (I wish I had a pic of the full plant).

Inspiration for growing this plant: I use the stalks in my Sri Lankan recipes and Ivette Soler talks about using lemon grass as a "ornamental grass" in her book the Edible Front Yard which I talk about here.

What do I love about this plant: It is like the energizer bunny it just keeps going and going. I've cut down the leaves a few times for "chai" (i.e. Indian spiced tea) but they are still growing. I can't wait to plant this back into the ground and see if it will take off again.

Growing tips: 
There are two types of lemon grass one grows easily from seed (I don't know if it has much of a stalk). This is the other type which I propagated from the stalk.

 Don't throw out this plant at the end of the summer season. I dug up one stalk and replanted it inside and it may not look huge but its growing strong.  I can't wait to plant it outside this summer.


Source:  Lemon grass stalks purchased from Wegmans

Favorite Plant Friday: Little green chilli plant (aka Thai green chilli)

Inspiration for growing this plant: If you've ever cooked southeast asian food you will know the inspiration. These little green chillis are used in nearly every savory dish cooked southeast asia (ok maybe not every but a lot of them).

What do I love about this plant: It has been flowering and producing chillis ALL WINTER LONG. It also held up against a spider mite infestation I had in the dead of winter.

I also love that this plant "tells" me when it needs water. Chilli plants like water but when grown in containers in the winter overwatering can be a problem. This plant droops its leaves when it wants water and I don't have to guess what is appropriate.

Growing tips: Don't throw out this plant at the end of the summer season. This plant was actually outside in the ground last summer and I decided to dig it out and throw it in a pot to over winter it. I do treat it for insects before I brought it indoors I used this method to do this.

My reason for trying to overwinter this plant was because they are really slow to start from seed here indoors in a zone 6 winter. In tropical climates these plants are perennials here in temperate climates these perennials become annuals, because they can not tolerate the snow.

Source:  I started this one from seed which I bought from here Bangkok (F1) Seed From Johnnys Select Seed.