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.

The sad- but tasty- fruits of our labor

For a few reasons, our small garden patch got started late this year.  I should preface this post with the disclaimer that this was my dear hubby and I's first independent venture into the world of food growing.  Consider yourself disclaimed...  
I visited Allandale Farm late in August in search of seeds that might still be willing to yield some produce at such a late date in our brisk Northeast climate.  I decided to give the spinach, arugula and baby carrot seeds a whirl as each packet's instructions gave me a glimmer of hope that they might be able to deliver on a promise of tasty and healthful sustenance.   I sewed the seeds in little rows in our raised 5'x8' garden (built so finely by my handy husband) and crossed my fingers, not really expecting anything to come of this as my thumbs have been noted to be fairly brownish in past growing endeavors.  How thrilled was I when I came outside several days later to find neat little rows of adorable sprouts popping out of the soil!  "We did it!  We really did it!" I thought.  How wonderful to grow your own edibles!  Well, as I began to grow a little more tired and a little less interested in the evenings, Andy religiously watered the ground, nurturing our greens in a way that I could not. A couple weeks later, I noticed that the greens had not progressed much further at all really.  "They're just taking their time, building up their tastiness" I thought, in the ever-present optimistic prism through which I view all things:)  Weeks passed, and still the greens stayed in their adorable sprout-like form, only now with little munches taken out by opportunistic predators.  I finally resorted to one dose of- dare I even utter it aloud- horror upon horrors- Miracle Gro.  Yes, I feel terrible about this, but I felt it was my only hope at the time.  The application resulted in a touch of upward motion for the arugula, but not so much doing for the spinach.

So, alas, as November's chill set in, one blustery morning I went out to the garden to uproot my little, developmentally-challenged, and ever-so-slightly chemically-tainted friends.  

I brought them into the house in a sweet woven basket to be admired for the day before preparing them in an itty bitty salad with homemade croutons (made from some Iggy's bread that we had lying around), some cheese bits, and a honey-mustard-balsamic vinaigrette.   And so ended our not-so-productive growing season, a little sadly, but quite tastily as well.  Better luck next year I suppose, lessons learned, or perhaps, not so much.