The Garden is Planted!

Today was a beautiful day, and I think we've passed the "last-frost" date for our region.  So it was time to get the garden planted. 
 We have a simple garden.  This year we planted broccoli and tomatoes in our small garden plot, and lots of containers of various sorts of hot peppers.  We don't need to have a really big garden, since we subscribe to Foxfire Acres CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in Des Moines.  We started with a half-season half-share last year, and went with a full season half-share this year since we liked it so much.  We just don't have room to grow things like squash, pumpkins, watermelon or sweet corn.  You can't see it very well in the picture, but our grape vine survived the winter.  Maybe we'll get enough grapes for a little batch of jelly.

Last spring we planted raspberry bushes, and they've really done well. Too well, maybe!  Does anyone have any good suggestions on how to tame them a little bit?  I'm afraid to prune them much, in case I prune off the part of the plant that makes the berries!

Here's all our hot peppers, potted up.  We have Jalapeno, Cayenne, Serrano, and Asian peppers.

Jeffrey took time out to plant a Prairifire (yes, that's how it's spelled) crabapple.  I hope it will bloom this year.  Prairifires have a deep magenta pink blossom.  I've wanted one for a long time, and we found one at the HyVee grocery for under $40.  We've been babying it with deep daily watering.  It's replacing a very thorny, very overgrown flowering quince bush.  I don't mind pruning bushes, but not if they have thorns.

We also planted a little catnip for our kitties. I love this planter!  The tail and head bob slightly if it's a windy day.

Kitchen Herbs

I've written several times about how nice it is to have fresh chives growing just outside the back doorstep.  We like other fresh herbs, too, and have come up with a plan to let them grow to their heart's content all summer and still allow us to enjoy them after fall's first frost.

We purchased  three inexpensive plastic flower boxes and loaded them up with our favorite herbs.  Here you can see parsley and two cilantro plants.

Here in the back you can see both Italian basil and Thai basil.  The front box has oregano, dill, and thyme.  We expect that the plants won't get super-big, because we'll be giving them continual hair cuts as we use the herbs for cooking.

We also have a medium sized flower pot that we've planted with rosemary.  A gardener I talked with says that rosemary likes to be kept very well-watered, so until the weather gets beastly hot I'm keeping the pot on our enclosed, windowed back porch so that I can see when it needs a drink of water.  And look!  Mom found me an owl cookie jar at a yard sale.  My great grandma had a cookie jar like this in her kitchen, and I've always wanted one.  Someone decided to use orange and brown paint on this one to replace the faded original red and black, but I don't mind.  I also keep the owl on the back porch, because it makes me smile everytime I come home from work and see him there in the corner.

As soon as I'm sure there won't be anymore frost, the window boxes will go outside for the summer.  So far they've made the trip outside and back twice as the weather changed! 

The container herb boxes are an experiment, but our hope is that we can continue to enjoy fresh, flavorful herbs into November and beyond.  We'll probably have to set up a grow-light for winter.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Jeffrey here.  This weekend I am planning (assuming weather cooperates) to plant our garden, but I've decided this year I'm going to plant my hot peppers in pots rather than in the garden, so we can enjoy them past the first frost.   Invariably, my pepper plants are still producing when the first frost hits, so this year, I'm going to take them inside when that time approaches, so we can enjoy fresh peppers into the winter, along with the herbs.