Garden Update

The sweet peppers are in the far corner. For some reason they took in five out of ten pots, all in the same row. They were some of the slowest to germinate, but now they are doing better than some of the other plants in my little tray. The tall ones in the middle, clearly my best crop so far, are jalapeños, and hiding between the sweet peppers and jalapeños are a few spinach sprouts. They started to grow quickly, but half of them have withered already. I wonder if maybe it was too hot a week or two ago, but I really don't know what happened to them. There are a couple that are still growing healthily right now, but I am hesitant to assume that they won't suffer the same fate... To this side of the jalapeños are a few short cayenne pepper plants. Those also took a while to germinate, and a couple are still just starting to sprout. They are hard to see in the photo, but I think there are five right now. The spindly plants on the end are heirloom tomatoes.

I have no update on the strawberries yet. I bought the plants in a bag, in the same way that one might buy bulbs. There was nothing green on them at the time, which concerned me, but that was how they were sold, so I figured I would give it a try. They've been sitting in a small pot behind the garage for a week or two now.

I keep going back and forth about where to plant the vegetables outside. The tiered garden has three hostas that need to be moved, and there will be quite a bit of work involved in getting the garden ready. It is already littered with weeds, some of them stemming from super thick, super deep roots and coming straight up through the landscaping fabric. Part of me still wants to use it after I figure out how to attack the weeds and then the soil.... Another part of me wants to just create a raised garden bed (or 2), but that's not in my budget.

If any of you reading are local and have any extra landscaping bricks or stones - or some ply wood laying around, I would love to make a trade... Maybe for some harvest, provided I find any success(?) I do bake, knit, and crochet, too. *wink, wink* At some point I will (hopefully) need some kind of tomato stakes or trellises too.

The pumpkin, zucchini, and green bean seeds are anxiously waiting to be planted too. I was going to start them outside, but I might just have to make some newspaper pots for those green beans pretty soon.

What did you plant in your first vegetable garden? How did you make out? I would love to hear about it. ♥

Oh yes, and I have realized that if I am going to continue to garden each year I am definitely going to need to start making compost...