Gardenapalooza

Well, springtime has hit in JP and today was a perfect day to garden!  Yesterday I went to Russo's- a food and garden market in Watertown that bills itself as the "food lovers food store"- to pick out some seedlings for our raised bed.  You may recall from one of my early posts that due to (ahem...) a couple of factors that were out of our control, we got a fairly low yield from our garden last year.  This year we are expecting much, much bigger and better things!  I was excited to find a huge selection of plants and it took me so long to pick out which ones I wanted that I think the seedlings had grown an inch by the time I cashed out:).  In the end, we wound up with a wonderful assortment of veggies: two kinds of peppers ("Red Beauty" and "Cubanelle"), five kinds of tomatoes ("Purple Cherokee," "Brandywine," "San Marzano," "Sungold" and "Early Girl"), roma beans, pickling cucumbers, arugula, parsley and basil.  Yes, I am aware that it is a little early to put peppers and tomatoes in, but I'm feeling lucky!  Not really, but they were an impulsive buy and the weather channel says no risk of frost for the next ten days, so hopefully they will be okay.  I also planted rows of yellow beets and carrots from the Seed Savers Exchange and am hoping upon hope that they will grow bigger than the miniature veggies that resulted from my seed sowing escapades last year.  Finally, I also planted some pretty little flowers in the window boxes off our porch and hopefully they too will make it through the Summer (fingers crossed)!  Below are some pics of the garden and window boxes as well as a couple signs of Spring from our yard.  Here's hoping for a bountiful season!

The little plants were nestled, all snug in their beds:)

Row of tomatoes.  In the back are the roma beans and cukes awaiting a trellis (an Andy task...) before they get tucked in.

I decided to get all hard core and actually measure out 18" between tomato plants.   Now they have no excuse not to grow tall and beautiful!  

Our strawberry pot with strawberry flowers that actually haven't been picked!  So exciting!!!

One of three window boxes on our front porch.

Dandelion wisher things...

Interesting plant in our front yard.  No idea what this is!

Funny white heart bush in our front yard.