Garden, Interrupted

Well, today I dismantled my container garden and brought it all over to my parents' house; from there, it'll go to several new homes among my family. We moved to a great new place, the only downside being complete lack of access to space for containers. So for now, I'm sending my lush little plants out into the cruel, cruel world.

Actually, I'm sure they'll get lots of love. Maybe they'll thrive better than when I had them!

Just an update on the state of things:

- The sugar snaps are just about done, yielding a total of about 10 pods. *sigh* I found evidence of something digging, despite the pot being up on the porch near our door. I guess sugar snap peas are just that irresistible.
- The purple beans look outstanding! I have two crops going, and the older one's got lovely little purple flowers all over. They've both gotten big and bushy and look really healthy.
- The spring onions, not so much. I'll be suprised if they continue to survive long enough to mature. Maybe they don't like being in the container. (Also, our neighbors killed off one container.)
- Yellow grape tomato is looking a little leggy, but has sent up a second main plant. I saw two little flowers on it today. Huzzah!
- Roma tomato looks much less leggy. I have high hopes.
- The greens seem to be...inconsistent. I'm curious to see how those will turn out.
- The radishes never happened. They all started flowering, and I never got an actual radish root. It may be that I didn't use a deep enough container, as they're tap root veggies.
- The carrots were mostly overwhelmed by the too-big radish greens, but a few survived. The carrots that were not planted with radishes are doing well.

I'm hoping to get some pictures of at least the beans when I visit them next. I would definitely grow Romano Purpiat again, so long as the yield is good. I've never had a happier plant in the garden.

May Flowers

There are delicate white blossoms popping up all over my sugar snap pea plants. I cannot tell you how excited I was to glance sleepily out my kitchen window Friday morning and realize what I was looking at.

Really, everything's going pretty well out there. And what I love best about today is this: I rubbed my hand over the tomato plants to encourage leaf growth, and I can still smell the dark earthiness of tomatoes on my hands.

(Also pictured: Violet pac choi growing with wild kale, radishes and teeny tiny frilly carrot greens, and the Romano purpiat string(less) beans, which are growing like gangbusters.)

Punk'd

I got very excited yesterday at the prospect of digging up a couple of radishes to go with last night's dinner. Pulled up the biggest bunch of greens in the container, only to discover - no radish! The greens are there, and looking healthy, but the radish hasn't fluffed out yet.

I looked around to be sure no one was looking, and tucked it back into the dirt. :P

Stopped by the local garden center yesterday to pick up a few things. I'll get herbs later, maybe at the plant sale in our city next weekend. For now, I wanted to get a couple of tomato plants and a pepper into the garden, since those need plenty of time to grow.

Our selections: Sun Sugar, an indeterminate yellow/orange grape tomato that promises to be sweet and prolific.

Golden Bell yellow bell pepper.

And a plain ol' Roma tomato. The center didn't have San Marzano, sadly. They did have a few heirloom varieties, but they already looked leggy.

Those have all been planted, so the count is on.

I took a peek at everything else while I was outside. The radishes are racing toward maturity, and I think the carrots aren't far behind. The spring onions still look small...I wonder if they need more light than they're getting. The beans seem to be doing well, and I planted another batch today. The greens seem to be doing well. The beets are teeny! Potentially not enough sun there, either, but they're in a cracked pot that I'm not moving.

Hmm. Those radishes are supposed to mature in 28 days. It should be any day now.

Sugar Snap

These babies are about a foot tall now, which should be about it for them. Now they ought to make with the peas!!

Inventory

Snap peas: Gorgeous!

Radishes: thinned!

Carrots: Sprouting!

Beans: Sprouting!

Spring onions: Sprouting!

Beets: Sprouting! Or not actually beets!

Indoor seedlings: Need to be replaced! Whoops.

Garden Check

- The snap peas look gorgeous. They should start producing soon, I think.

- Lots of radishes have come up. I need to thin this weekend.

- Also, a good number of greens.

- My neighbors, who I'm starting to think of as the Destroyer of Worlds, may or may not have killed several other containers last weekend.

- I will need to get some nursery seedlings. Mine are just not going to make it.

- If all goes well, our next house already has a raised bed garden.