Harvest Monday - April 30, 2012. First Harvest!!

Technically, this is not the first harvest of the season.  We almost always harvest chives for baked potatoes in March, but I did not bother to post that. Chives grow like weeds in my garden(although they are so flavorful and I love them)!  I don't really consider them as harvest anymore.  So Asparagus is our First Harvest of the season!!  Check out Daphne's Dandelions for everyone else's harvests.

We lost earlier Asparagus crowns to frost that followed the warm March month.  Still, this is not bad at all for the first harvest.  An impending frost forecast compelled me to harvest everything above ground. 

Several Green and One Purple(top) crowns!

A view of Asparagus beds.......

Bed #1

Bed #2.  Look closely at the tiny sticks, they're all crowns emerging :)

Check out the purple asparagus crown!

Green Aparagus crown on left and a tiny purple on the right!

A View of our Fruit Trees!

We have a few fruit trees - 3 Apple, 2 Plum and 1 Cherry tree!  This is how they look today...

Montmorency Cherry (with blossoms)

Superior(back) and Alderman(front) Plum trees.  All done blooming(lost to frost).

Zestar Apple (with blossoms)

Honey Crisp no blossoms yet!

Sweet 16 - no blossoms!

A new strawberry bed

I've had a strawberry bed for 2 years now - (just a plot of land about 4 ft by 8 ft, cut out of the sod and a couple of plants planted).  The runners from the strawberry plant took over in no time and covered the entire space.  I don't remember the name of the variety, but they only produce berries in June, so definitely june bearing. 

A raised bed placed on top of old strawberry bed(black edge)

Since my previous experience of building a raised bed, I decided to build one for strawberries too.  I read that the strawberry needs to be replanted about every two years, so it was time to replant the runners and also try out a different variety.  After filling the new bed with compost and lots of it, some of the old runners were replanted.  I picked out a everbearing - 'Quinault' strawberry in a small pot at Walmart for $2.98.  Divided the bed in two sections, one for the new variety and the other for the old one.

Here's the redone strawberry bed. The lone plant is Quinault and the rest are June bearing ones.

Unfortunately, I was saddened to see that the deer had already tasted the new planting- the very next day(:-  The leaves were chewed off and a part of the plant uprooted.  I've planted that back and watered them.  Also, covered it with net, so hopefully the plant will root and send some runners soon.

'Quinault' strawberry plant chewed off by deer!

A new gardening season - 2012!!

A new year for experimenting with vegetable/flower seeds, new ways and places to plant them, new ways to evade the pesky deer/bunnies etc., I'm all ready for the gardening season of 2012!!

This year I received a very nice present from Daphne from Daphne's Dandelions - seeds!!  Thank you Daphne for Cherokee Purple tomato, Cilantro and Red Sails lettuce seeds. 

Seeds from Daphne!

I'm super excited to grow Cherokee Purple.  I've heard great things about this variety of tomato, but never seen them available locally in zone 4.  Both Red Sails and Cherokee Purple were planted a couple minutes ago:)

A new thing for this year is 3 brand new raised beds!  12 feet by 3.5 feet each!!  For the past few years, I was using a spot (minus sod), but the grass is always creeping into the garden and it was time consuming to shovel out the grass roots every couple months.  Hopefully, raised beds will keep the grass out of the garden.  I plan to mulch around it, once it is filled with dirt....

                     

3 new raised beds!!

So far most of the seeds are planted indoors by the window - tomatoes, peppers, eggplants etc., Red onions were first seeded in early March, two weeks later the rest of the veggies were seeded.  Some of them are sprouted already!! 

Seeds soaking in the sun

A view of the plum trees blossoming already!!  I don't think we have seen the last of the frost yet, so sadly, we won't have any plums later on.....