How Does My Garden Grow?

[talon]

Our last hard frost will be later this month. Today, it's over 70ºF and will only get hotter as the summer progresses (yes, weather-wise, we're about to hit summer, spring is going to be a mere pause instead of a full season).

It's time to start the annuals I'll be growing.

So what's going to be in my garden this year?

I dunno.

But I'm pretty sure tomatoes will be there as I've already gotten mine started and they are beginning to set blooms. I should have tomatoes by mid to late April - the little yellow pear ones that ripen early and all season long until we get 13 inches of snow. The question is, other than my yellow pears, what kind of tomatoes will I grow and how many plants will I put in? I'm thinking I might grow Jersey Devils and Cream Sausage (both paste tomatoes, one red and one yellow), Brad's Black Heart, and a Brandywine.

Radishes because I like fresh radishes and they are insanely easy to grow and do well under tomatoes. And mesclun mix of lettuces because there's nothing better than picking the lettuce for your sandwich or salad only minutes before you eat it.

Malabar spinach because you get both spinach flavored greens and strawberry flavored fruit from it and it's pretty and lush looking.

Asparagus because I have an asparagus patch that I plan to add to.

Snowpeas because they are also easy and prolific and freeze well for soups and stir fries.

Vegetable-wise, I think that's it until I can start gardening in back (which, sadly, may be next year as Dogmatyx is very elderly and may not make it through a very hot summer or another very cold winter in spite of precautions and care). These will do nicely in the front yard with my other edible plants without upsetting the neighbors too much.

My non-vegetable edible plants are: the redbud tree (the red buds are sweet as honeysuckle and slightly tart - very delicious), the lavender, the roses, the rosemary, the wild violets, the dandelions, calendula, nasturtiums, pinks, yarrow, daisies, hyssop, sage, strawberries, bush cherries, basil, borage, bee balm, chives, parsley, dill, chamomile, thyme, lemon balm, sorrel, savory, wormwood, edible chysanthemum, oregano, lovage, fairy (or miner's) lettuce, chicory, bachelor buttons, mints, elfin sunflowers (they're only 6 inches tall!), poppy seed poppies, raspberries, blueberries, and I'm debating snap beans and shell peas.

I'm hoping to find forsythias this year because I want a low hedge of forsythias near the redbud for pretties and to help keep Rhapsody from dashing into the street when we take the little pack out to play. It should disguise the low fence quite well that I'll be putting in. The bush cherries will hide the fence on the eastern edge of the yard, and I'm thinking I'll move the blueberries to be along the western edge of the yard. The house, of course, is the northern edge of the yard. Some paving stones and chairs and it wll be nice to sit out there in the evenings while the dogs play.

The back yard can't be changed at all any more because Dogmatyx is going blind from cataracts ($3,000 per eye to fix - ain't gonna happen), so no back yard gardening at all. Out of kindness to him, I'll eave the yard untouched so he doesn't have to learn his way around new obstacles.

And that's all my gardening plans this year - no potatoes, no peppers, no cucumbers, no squashes, no beans (except maybe green snap beans, blue lake, perhaps), no cauliflowers, no cabbages, no broccoli, no Brussels sprouts, no kohlrabi, no rutabagas, no carrots, no onions or garlic or celery or beets or collards or kale or melons or leeks or corn or wheat or rice or chards or parsnips or skirrets or bok choy or eggplant or cardoons or ground cherries or artichokes this year.

I am keeping it small this year. I lost so much to the extreme heat of last summer and the extreme cold of this winter that it will take a while to recover from them. Many of my plants died before they set seed so I have to start all over with bought seeds or plants.

We aren't used to such extremes and I wasn't prepared for them - still not, really, because it means buying row covers, heaters, and shade covers - and the stakes to winch them against our high winds. I did rig some shade up from barrier cloth and planted many of the vegetables under trees where they were protected from the direct hottest sun of the day (still got 8+ hours of direct sun, just not the killingly hot sun) and the heat instead of the sun killed them. I had tomatoes actually cook on the vine!

And we aren't even going to talk about the multiple deep snows and freezes we had.

It will take a couple of years to buy the necessary covers and stakes and such to protect my plants so I'm just not growing them until I can keep them alive long enough to both harvest and collect seed.

I'll grow the ones I love eating fresh picked - the tomatoes, lettuces, radishes, snowpeas, malabar spinach, and the plants that survived our weather extremes this year - can you believe I have flowers on my strawberries already? And that's it.

A light garden.