Veg*n Cooking and Other Random Musings: Garden Update #6

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Garden Update #6

Happy day to all you Momma's out there, whether to human critters or fur-children.
I've spent what is looking to be a gloomy Sunday morning listening to jazz and enjoying coffee, that has brightened the day quite a bit. Anybody out there like the Modern Jazz Quartet? They do my very favorite jazz song, Blues in A Minor. They don't make music like they used to.....

Anyways, we put our starts in the ground yesterday. It turned out to be quite a muddy affair as it rained most of the week after the garden was tilled, but we made it work.

The weather decided to, of course, take a turn for the worse after we put our plants in the ground, since then it has been raining and very windy. I'm a bit concerned about the plants, but what can we do now? I guess they'll have to be able to take wind and rain if they hope to survive, right? We planted them really deep, so hopefully that helped. We'll be going to check on them a little later today. We might not have a garden anymore. :-( It must be a mighty stressful profession, being a farmer, with your livelihood at the whim of Mother Nature.

We also got our pepper starts this week. We're going to have to make a trip to the store to get some terra cotta pots, organic potting mix and worm 'casings' (worm poo - hehe) early this week so we can transplant them. One of the starts we have already has a bloom on it!

Check out the community garden:

I owe much gratitude to my coworker Ann, who so kindly donated some garden implements to our community garden. It was such a nice thing to do, as our gardens are humble, rely on donations and the kindness of people like her. Brett and I are especially grateful as we didn't have any gardening implements at all (unless you count gardening gloves). Thanks Ann! I'm sure everyone at the garden appreciates it.




























































































This is me in the garden. Don't know if you can tell or not, but I'm covered in mud. :-)















The broccoli is going wild!















The chard is too!

(I apologize for some of the pictures of the peppers, it's really cloudy today so the lighting made for poor pictures.)



















Poblano pepper.















Habanero. It's looking good and I think the aphid situation is finally coming under control.



















Orange bell pepper.



















This is something called a "Super Chile", it's a very hot, long red pepper that is apparently suited to Missouri's climate.















Hot banana peppers. When we were picking out starts, Brett informed me that he prefers the hot banana peppers to the sweet ones. Who am I to deny him his spice?



















Jalapeno pepper.



















Chocolate sweet pepper.



















Long red cayenne pepper.



















Bell pepper.



















Hungarian wax pepper. (I was really excited to find this one!)















The Hungarian wax already has a bloom on it!

The serrano is starting to develop some buds as are the rest of the pepper starts. We kept a serrano pepper and a couple New Mexican Chile starts we started from seed just in case they get big enough to fruit this summer. I forgot to take pictures of them, but slowly but surely they are growing, getting new leaves and so one.

Anyways, I will try post about a fusion quesadilla I made last night if I have time later today.

'Til next time!

9 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

I love jazz music - so soothing!

Your garden is really growing!! Fabulous!!

Oooh, can't wait to see photographs of your quesadillas!

Alicia said...

Oh, don't worry about the wind and rain, your garden is sure there!

Lori- the Pleasantly Plump Vegan said...

that is a lot of different peppers!

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

Wow you have a big garden! I’m so excited to see the broccoli when it’s all grown and ready to eat.

Anonymous said...

your plants look amazing! The chard seems really healthy. Love the garden, I wish I had one to get dirty in. haha.

oh, by the way, I bought the ingredients to make the black bean enchiladas, but I ended up using the peppers for something else. I will still have to find chipotle and poblano peppers. I bought a pasilla, but I think I want the spice. Almost there! Oh and you'll be proud to know that I used dried beans! Hi-Five!

Unknown said...

wow, lady, i guess you like peppers as much as i do. i have 15 different varieties. :)

Calimaryn said...

Awesome gardening! I am so jealous at such a wonderful array.

J said...

Veggie Girl - Jazz is probably my favorite style of music. I don't care for the more 'experimental' stuff though.

I know, we've been really pleased with our not having killed the plants already. :-)

Alice - I hope so. Brett is going to go check on it this afternoon!

Pleasantly - I know, it borders on obsession.

Chocolate Covered - Don't be fooled by the picture, the entire garden isn't ours, just a plot in it. Basically the two rows of plants you see is our garden plot.

I can't either, I am waiting for the day I go out to see baby brocooli!

Leng - I know, I am really happy with the status of the chard. Brett keeps talking about how tasty it looks, asking if we really have to wait for it to get full grown. :-)

We are really lucky to have the community garden coalition here in Columbia. A lot of really wonderful people and places have donated space, seeds, knowledge, etc. And they provide it for free, the only thing we gardeners have to do is work to keep the garden as a whole tidy.

WAHOOOOO! Don't feel bad, I find myself doing that all the time, I'll go to look for some peppers and realized I used them for something else.

You can usually find chipotle chilies and chipotle chilies in adobo sauce canned in the 'ethnic' area of the grocery store.

Yay for dried beans! You are getting there, you'll be a bean pro in no time.

::Incorrectly returns high five::

Sorry, I'm not very good at high fiving. :-)

Chandelle - 15 varieties? Can I move in? I don't take up much space. :-) I'd love to see pictures of your garden.

Calimaryn - Thanks! We're just keeping our fingers crossed they survive!

Mihl - Thanks!

Lindsay (Happy Herbivore) said...

the hippie wants to hug all your plants (& i never invisioned a space that big when u told me u were getting a garden plot. in boston they were like 10x5!!)