Our Garden Continues...

First of all I hope everyone is safe and secure after the violent weather we've had in the last few days throughout the gulf states and the east coast. Mother Nature has sure been flexing her muscles!

Now back to better things. I've run into a few delays on getting my garden started when I wanted to this spring, but now I'm on my way with it.

These are 3/4" mini soil blocks all made up and put in a flat ready for the seeds to germinate.

The upper flat in the gray plastic tray contains Swiss Chard Bright Lights seed in 2" soil blocks. The lower flat contains seeds for dill, red, yellow and orange bell peppers, common sage, and san marzano tomatoes. Old bread truck trays make excellent holders for two flats at a time. They're stackable, which is very handy when bad weather is on the way. I load them onto a flat hand truck and roll them into my shop. When it has cleared, I roll them back out into the sunshine and unstack them. Of course I won't be able to stack them when they sprout, but they are still easy to carry in to safety in case of bad weather.

The top flat in this picture contains 46 each 2" soil blocks with dwarf french marigold seeds sown in them. I harvested those seeds last year when I had the marigolds throughout the garden to help deter  various types of pests. The flat in the lower portion of the picture contains 40 each 2" soil blocks of Petaluma Gold Rush Bean seeds (Thanks Michelle!).






The following three pictures are of my high bush blueberries that are going into their fourth year. Each of the buds that you can see in the pictures will be a blueberry. You can see the blue color at the base of the buds. In addition to those branches in the pictures, there are new ones sprouting all over the bushes, so I anticipate a plentiful harvest this year.

I can't wait 'til they're ready to pick!

Early last year I planted a Brown Turkey fig tree next to the fence in our back yard. Here is the very first fig that it is producing for us.

My Glenora grape vines appear to be just beginning to show their new spring growth for this year. Upon closer inspection, I was suprised to find... baby grapes! On the very few green leaves and vines that are showing growth, there are nine clusters of grapes forming! I can hardly wait to see what the full vines will be bearing this year!

I need to plan now for installing bird netting before they begin tasting the grapes when they are ripening. If I don't, I'll lose a lot of the grapes.

The broccoli has gone to flower and is going to seed. Some of the yellow flowers are visible in the picture. When the flower petals dry and fall off, little green pods are left that develop into the actual seed pods. You can see the seed pods here that actually look a little like small green beans. If you click on the picture, it will show you a larger view. (Use the back arrow to return to the blog.) They look like crooked little green candles.

Here is a later picture of the same broccoli plant. You can see that the flowers have browned out and most of them have formed into seed pods that are larger than those in the previous picture. Click on the picture and you can see that the main stalk is becoming distressed and is shriveling as indicated by the indentations developing along its length. That means the seeds are growing just the way they are supposed to. If you look close at the pods, you can see the bulges of the seeds in the pods.


With a little luck, the weather will cooperate and I'll be able to do the final tilling of my soil this week before I can plant seeds in my garden. That's all the high points from our garden for now.

Everyone have a great vegetable gardening day!
Veggie PAK