We Planted Our Garden Yesterday

My aunt and I planted all the seeds in our plot at the community garden.  We didn't plant the tomato and pepper starts.  It was very windy and cold.  We didn't want them to get damaged by the wind.  They are all on my porch for now.  I am also growing tomatoes and peppers on my porch in pots.

We planted Bush beans (Tricolor mix: purple, yellow and green), Scarlet Runner beans (my favorite), peas (sugar snap), lettuce (butter crunch), spinach (Olympia), radishes (cherry belle), onion starts (yellow sweet),  and carrots (rainbow carrots and short 'n sweet). Our tomatoes and peppers we have to put in later are: Early Girl, Roma, Super Fantastic VF, and Sungold (a golden cherry type) and two jalapeno, a cayenne and an Anaheim chili.  Here is our garden plan we drew up in Correl Draw:

We made this plan before we went shopping for seeds and starts so the varieties of tomatoes and peppers are a little different. The radish/onion rainbows are planted around the automatic sprinklers and the carrots ended up being planted in a shape closer to a chicken foot. There is a 4 foot chain link fence in the back for the beans and peas to grow on. I will post pictures when things start coming up so you can see where they are.  We also made laser etched wooden stakes at my aunties laser etching business marking our different types of plants.  Right now all you can see in our garden is those stakes and the onion starts, but it is already cute. 

I am planting another jalapeno, a cayenne pepper, sungold tomato, a Belgian delight heirloom tomato (purple and green), and two Romas in pots on my porch.  I am thinking about planting an eggplant and some climbing cucumbers in the last two large pots on my porch.  I don't expect much from those, but I have to try it. My porch also has two hanging baskets of nasturtiums, and a rectangular shallow tub with radishes and green onions.  Those radishes were planted two weeks ago and are already growing well. We have some smaller pots for herbs, in which my daughter planted some lavender starts from my moms house and I planted a rosemary plant I bought at Lowe's. The only non-edible plants we will have are two million bell plants that will be tucked in with one of the peppers or tomatoes for some color.  We live on the second floor of an apartment complex and wanted to have some color for our neighbors.  We also have some very cute, miniature hens and chicks in some very small pots.  My daughter rescued them along with the lavender starts from my mom's house when we were clearing the garden area for vegetables.

I have heard from several people that I can expect all of the produce at the community garden to be harvested by someone else.  I hope that is not true, but even if it is, we are having fun and not investing too much money, so we can just look at it as practice gardening for when I have my own garden and as a chance to exhibit our cute ideas for the whole town. The cucumbers and maybe a small pumpkin plant are being started in peat pots at my aunties house so we can just plop them in the ground when the soil temp is high enough.  She is also trying to start some basil for me.  That has never gone well for me, starting basil indoors.  It gets too spindly no matter how sunny the spot I put it in.  I really want some cinnamon basil on my porch, but I can't find starts for it, so I hope the seeds work out.  I will also try seeding it direct when it is a bit warmer.  We are having a very cool spring this year.

 I am also worrying about pollination at the community garden, because it is in the middle of parking lots in a part of town that doesn't have many flowers growing around.  The end caps of the rows of gardens are supposed to be planted with flowers later, but I think we might want to add some marigolds to our plot.  Maybe after the radishes and lettuce are done. The small pumpkin will get to fill in to the pea spot when those are done and hopefully we can train it up the fence.  The pumpkins are the smallest we could find the package says 2 pound fruits.  We will see.