My Garden 2011

Here is my veggie garden for 2011. I feel like I am a bit behind my friends who have been harvesting since April. But, at least my garden is growing. This year, I did not start any seedlings, I just tossed seed into the bed. I saved seed from some of my local organic food from last year. I rinsed pepper and tomato seeds, and then put the seeds in little dishes to dry. Then I stacked to dishes of dry seed and put them in a cool, dry and dark place. By spring, I had no idea what seed was what, so I had no choice but to just make a hole in the dirt with my finger, and toss some seed in, and see what comes up.

Amish paste tomato

All of my original tomato plants got eaten by something. I don't know what. Every plant that came up, was about 2-3 inches tall were all hopefuls. But the next day, all the leaves would be striped off and a small dying twig would be left.

pepper of unknown variety

I kept seed of a variety of pepper plants including banana peppers, pizza peppers, poblanos, orange, cherry bombs, and cayenne. The pepper shown above is not matching any peppers I grew last year. It is a complete surprise. None of the banana, pizza, poblano, orange or cherry bombs came up. The only peppers that have come up is the plant as shown above and about a dozen cayenne plants. Eh, I don't love peppers anyway, except for a couple New Orleans recipes I make. I can just go buy a few peppers.

cayenne

The rest of the plants I have in there are kale, brussel sprouts, lettuce and a bunch of herbs. The brussel sprouts had a hard start too, as the critters seemed to like to chew on those very well. The sage as well, all 5 of my former sage plants were eaten. I had to go buy another, #6, and that seems to be the charm. The oregano, mint, thyme and rosemary from last year are doing quite well. The basil is new. I wish I had some of the varieties I had last year, but I only have one this year.

the veggie garden

It was an experiment this year to see how the garden would grow if I just dumped seed in the garden plot. So far so good. We have yet to eat off of it, but I hope by the next few weeks we will.