Spring and Summer Garden, 2022 - Bed A2

 There are garlic and shallots in this smaller bed from last November, so I've left those. On the other side of the bed I planted the few sweet peppers that I was able to get germinated.  I didn't have a good year with the sweet peppers. I think some of my seed stash is getting too old, so next spring I'll buy new stock.

Sweet Peppers:

Apricot Favorite - no link found to this one. It's a bell type and I got the seeds from one of my Facebook group gardeners.

Devil's Horn - a sweet "Juicy Fruit" flavor. Now doesn't that sound wonderful? I managed to get two plants!

Red Bell - Sadly I purchased this Bonnie plant from Home Depot.  I just didn't get enough sweet peppers to germinate this year. 

Sunbright Yellow - a nice sized yellow bell.

Apple Crisp - If you want to get picky, this is really a hot pepper, but it's mostly sweet with the occasional zing - about 400 on the Scoville scale. I'm hoping it's as delicious as it sounds! I have two of these.

Peperone de Senise - a sweet, long red pepper from the town of Senise in the Bascilicata region of Spain. 

Spring and Summer Garden, 2022 - Bed B1

We have hot peppers and bush beans in this bed, along with some bunching onions that continue to come up here every year.  

Hot Peppers:

4 ea. Komodo Dragon - 1.5 million on the Scoville scale. I don't know why I grew this one, except for the cool name. I will never eat anything that hot.

3 ea. Thor's Thunderbolt - 300-500K on the Scoville scale. Supposed to be fruity and with sharp heat. I loved the look of this one and can't wait to see how it does.  I've tried to grow this for 2 years now and didn't have any success last year (seedling froze during our snowpocalype in Feb. 2021.)

1 ea. Aji Guyana - From the Caribbean island of Guyana, this yellow pepper varies in heat from about 2K all the way to 75K, depending on growing conditions. This one will probably make some good pepper flakes!

Bush Green Beans:

Napoleon - a slightly small green bean
Sassy - another beautiful straight green bean
Jade - long, straight jade colored and stringless
Blue Lake - meaty and stringless green bean

Spring and Summer Garden, 2022 - Bed A1

 Bed A1 is where I had planned to put all of the dwarf tomatoes, but it ended up being a bit of a mixture of both dwarf and a few indeterminates.  I guess that's what always ends up happening, you work with what actually grew and survived, and the plan goes a bit awry. It's all good. I'll have to find a way to stake the larger plants, or keep them pruned to a manageable size.

There are 18 tomato plants total.  

Wild Fred has lush potato leaves!

Plants in this bed include:

Dwarf Tomatoes

1. Cherry Fiaschetto - red cherry, Italian heritage 
2. Hrusha Chorna - red saladette sized fruit, 2 ft. tall plants 
3. Yamal - red, full sized
4. Tasmanian Chocolate - brown/red large, 3-4 ft. tall plant
5. Juni - red, medium size, 18" high plant
6. Orange Pixie - 2-1/2 ft tall plants, large orange cherry
7. Taxi (4 plants) - 2 ft. tall plants, yellow slicer
8. Wild Fred - 4 ft tall plants, purple/red large tomatoes. I'm not sure I have true seeds for this one, mine is a potato leaf plant and it's listed online as regular leaf. We'll see what develops. 
9. Blazing Beauty - 3-1/2 ft. tall plants, orange slicer
10. Yellow Warbler - I don't have any info on this one. I got the seeds from Bunny Hop Seeds but it's not listed there anymore, and I don't have the original package. Another one where we'll just have to wait and see.

Indeterminate Tomatoes

1. Sweet Beverly - yellow plum
2. Summer Temptation (2 plants) - orange grape with black shoulders
3. Black Elephant - large purple/black tomato
4. Gobstopper - dehybridized Sun Gold cherry

Basil Plants

1. Ready Freddie Basil
2. Anise Basil
3. Italian Classico Basil
4. Amethyst Basil
5. Opalescence Basil
6. Persian Basil

The Worm Factory - First Compost Yield

 The worm factory I got for Christmas came with 3 levels.  I filled the first level in January, added the second in February and the third in March.  Today I emptied the 1st level from January and it was glorious, dark, beautiful compost - full of rich worm castings! 

I was amazed at how beautiful and fine it was - no clumps, no leftover food, and almost no worms. They are supposed to migrate up as you add trays, so the system worked the way it was designed. 

The other two trays had plenty of worms, and they all look really healthy. I harvested about 3 gallons of compost this time, and hopefully will continue to get the same amount every month. What a great way to use kitchen waste!

A baby straggler

Beautiful compost!

Spring and Summer Garden, 2022 - Hanging Basket Tomatoes

 I'm trying seven new hanging basket type tomatoes this year after having such good experience last year with Whippersnapper. I love that these are at eye level, I don't have to bend, stoop, or kneel to take care of them and to harvest. I think I'll be doing many more of these in the future! I've put 3 plants in each large hanging basket, and they're hanging from my squash house. John put a drip waterer in each of them. So easy on me!

Varieties include:

1. Sirja's Love
2. Anmore Dewdrop
3. 100's and 1,000s
4. Cuotomate
5. Mini Parvula
6. Marz Pulcent
7. V'nucenka

Spring and Summer Garden, 2022 - The Micro Dwarf Tomatoes

 I had a scare last night - the temperature dropped to 36 degrees! I woke up so worried about my little plants, but thankfully they seemed to sail right through.  I only lost the top off of one of my hanging basket tomatoes, so I trimmed it and it will recover just fine. 

The many micro dwarf tomatoes have been taken out of the greenhouse now and are in the potting garden on a wire shelf for the summer. They do get shade in some of the afternoon there, and I think they will do just fine where I set them up.  If it proves too hot, I will move them again.

These will give us cherry tomatoes of various sizes and colors. Varieties are: 

Andrina - red

Baby - red 

Birdie Juane - yellow

Christmas Tree - red 

Delice de Neuilly - red

Florida Petite - red

Gold Pearl - yellow

Hahms Gelb - yellow

Hardin's Miniature - red

Jochalas - yellow

Laura #5 - red

Lil' Peeps - yellow

Lille Lisse - red

Linda - red

Marco Italiano - unknown 

Micro Tom - red 

Monetka - yellow 

Orange Hat - orange 

Pinnochio Yellow - yellow

Plumbrella F5 red

Red Robin - red

Rosy Finch - pink

The Moment - red

Tiny Tim - red 

Venus - yellow 

Vilma - red

Yellow Balcony - yellow

These micro dwarfs are a lot of fun to grow and don't take up much room. They do nicely in a one gallon pot and are just the right size for a porch or even a window sill.  I encourage everyone to give them a try!

Spring and Summer Garden, 2022 - The Main Tomato Row

I'll be documenting the garden here this year since I'd like to try to keep track of how each variety I plant does here. It's been a struggle getting the garden in this year, mainly due to cold weather at night. Usually I've got the whole thing in by mid-March. The seedlings suffered a bit with being root bound and leggy, but I think they'll soon be happy again.

John built a complete fence around the tomato row this year to keep that pesky armadillo out!

From front to back: 

1. Black Elephant, a large purple/black tomato 

2. Super Sweet 100 (hybrid), a red cherry tomato 

3. Blaue Kasachstan, large red with dark shoulders

4. Versalkie, a red cocktail sized tomato from Russia

5. Oaxacan Jewel, large red & yellow

6. Wee Tang Shebang, not sure which variety I have here - this tomato comes in red, yellow and orange. To be determined! It's a cherry sized.

7. Copper River, Greens/reds/yellow/purple splashes in a large tomato. This is the ONE I'm looking forward to the most!

8. Pig Nose, I can't find a thing on this one. We will all have to wait and see what develops!

9. Girl Girl's Weird Thing, red & green stripe

10. Tsungshigo, Chinese chocolate colored grape tomato

11. Jelly Bean (Hybrid), red grape sized tomatoes

12. Sart Roloise, large pale yellow with blue shoulders, bred in Belgium

13. Black Strawberry, blue/scarlet/gold cocktail tomato

14. Snowball, pale white/blush large tomato

15. Ei Von Phuket, pink grape tomato from Thailand, "egg from Phuket island" (pronounced "poo ket" - the h is silent in Thai.) 

16. Long Tall Sally, pink striped heart

17. Summer Cider, medium sized yellow

18. Tiffen Mennonite, large pink brandywine from Germany

19. Turkish Monastery, striped red & gold found, you guessed it, in a monastery in Turkey

There are more tomatoes in the main garden (I went tomato crazy this year.) I'll be documenting those in the next few days!