Hooray For Veggies!

Spring has sprung and Jim and I finally got to plant our garden. It's something we look forward to every year. Saturday we went to Sierra Nursery to get our plants. We love this place because they have the best selection of tomatoes and peppers. In addition to plants, they also have all types of rocks and landscaping material. Last year we rocked a large section of our backyard for less then $500 dollars and that included delivery. I highly recommend checking it out if you can. After the nursery, we made a quick stop at Lowes to get the rest of the soil. We used a mixture of garden soil, steer manure, existing dirt, and Amend. We did this last year and it seemed to work well. Jim also will feed the plants every week or two with Liquid Miracle Grow. He swears by it!

While I worked on the other side of the garden, Jim went to work on the planter boxes. Jim and his step dad made them a few years ago and they have held up very well. This is the third year we have been using them. Here you can see Jim working hard at mixing his soil concoction.

This year we got six pepper plants, five tomatoes, two cucumbers, onions, and corn. Normally we get a zucchini or two but we decided against it this year. We always seem to have problems with them. The plants start out great, we get four or five fruits, and then for no reason they die. I think it is a pollination issue. Last year we tried pollinating them ourselves by using q-tips, but that just got to be a pain. So this year we stuck with the plants we knew worked. The only new things we are trying are corn and onions.

In addition to the planter boxes, we have two sections of land on the other side of the lawn that we use for the cucumbers, tomato overflow and whatever else we want.

Here is a list of the type of plants we got

Tomatoes: Early Girl, Abraham Lincoln, Fantastic, Black Cherry, and Snow White

Cucumbers: Lemon and Diva

Peppers: Early Jalapeno, Jimmy Nardello, Giant Aconcagua, Cherry Bomb, Tabasco, & Serrano

Corn: Silver Queen Onions: Sweet Walla Walla

I have high hopes for this years crop. If everything produces, I will have all the ingredients I need to make my favorite salsa all summer long. Oh an I almost forgot, we also got two types of lettuce: Giant Red and Jericho. So here's to gardens everywhere!