Long time, no blog...and this one will be a doozie...

I can't believe it's been two and a half years since I've blogged.  So here's the chunky on what's going on in my garden:

Garden:

We've gotten most of our garden in at my grandmother's house.  This year I am going to try planting herbs and some flowers between our tomatoes.  I have wanted to for a couple of years but never have. 

We are doing 3 rows of tomatoes.  A full row of Celebrity tomatoes.  They have less acid and family members can eat the vegetable soup we make with these tomatoes without indigestion.  We did a full row of Better Boys and then a mixed row.  My grandmother wanted a German Queen and a German Pink but we ended up with a German Queen and German Johnson.  My sister and I call them butt tomatoes because they are so wrinkled at the top and look like a butt more often than not.  We also have 4 super sauce tomato plants.  I hope to make some spaghetti sauce this year.  Also, I'm a little behind on getting them started, but I have some Snowberry tomatoes - they are awesome.  They are white cherry tomatoes and they taste a little more on the fruity side.  Very delish!

We are doing a full row of okra.  However, what I planted 2 weeks ago hasn't come up yet.  So my dad is going today to get some seeds and get some plants started on the heat pad because it will be cool here the next few days.  We use Clemson Spineless okra - I can harvest them bare-handed, but still use scissors - my dad uses disposable latex gloves when he harvests to keep from itching.  I am hoping this year if we start some true Clemson Spineless I can save the seeds and use them in future years. Once the okra gets started, I will probably put some crookneck squash plants in amongst them.

The row of Better Boys and mixed row of tomatoes are in my grandmother's back yard, along with the row of okra - I call it the lower garden. In the front of the house, across the driveway is a 5 row garden - I call it...the top garden - shocker, I know! 

Row 1 closest to the driveway is Bush Blue Lake green beans (2 lines for the row) and sunflowers in the middle of the row.  I am going to have to go back and re-plant some of the beans as some aren't coming up.  I will do that this weekend along with weeding everything.  I actually enjoy weeding - it is very cathartic for me - almost as though I'm pulling my internal "weeds" at the same time. 

Row 2 is colossus peas with Silver Queen corn in the middle of the 2 lines of peas.  These colossus peas are years in the making for us.  A friend of my great aunt and grandmother sells the peas in shell.  We got some and my grandmother and I were going to dry some to use for seed.  I had colossus peas and 3 other varieties of peas and beans I had dried and kept separate.  The day I was shelling the dried peas to put the seeds away for the next spring, I dumped almost every single one on the floor in my living room.  I could have cried right there because they all looked alike.  Luckily, I had 2 hulls of colossus that I hadn't shelled yet.  I took the seeds from those 2 and planted them last year in a little spot in our garden.  My grandmother got one little mess off of it, and every other bit was saved for seed.  I ended up with a jelly jar full of seeds...yay!  So this year we have a full row of these peas...which is lucky for us because our "supplier" hasn't had these peas again and isn't planning them this year, either.

Row 3 is potatoes in the middle and peas on either side.  This year I was actually able to use our very own seed potatoes from last year!  I brought the last of the potatoes to my house to can up last year, and there was about 3 gallons of potatoes that I never got around to canning.  I put them in a vented basket (cheapie from the Dollar Tree) with a paper towel in the bottom and sat it in front of a vent in a little nook area between the kitchen and living room.  There they sat for months - sprouting a bit, and shriveling, but not rotting.  In March, when we broke ground to plant potatoes, I brought these back to my grandmothers and planted them...and I still have some left.  I am thinking I may try a tire tower at my house. 

The peas on Row 3 are really just for seed for next year.  I have some Tiger Eye beans and some Orca Beans.  I also tried to plant some White Acre peas, but they didn't do at all.  I was getting desperate to find some seed and ordered off of e-bay.  Biggest waste of $7.00 - only about 1/3 germinated and then of those that I got in the ground, they all died.  I may try to order some from a seed company.  I just hate ordering one kind of seed and paying the shipping.  White Acre peas are a favorite food of my mom's side of the family from south Georgia.  We always had them for a few meals when we would go to visit and my uncles have kept up the tradition.  When we celebrated Christmas with that side of the family, we had hamburgers, hot dogs, cole slaw, and white acre peas. 

Row 4 is the row of Celebrity Tomatoes.  There is also a crookneck squash plant at the end of this row, as well as at the end of rows 1 and 2. 

Row 5 is the back row and backs up to a wooden fence that separates my grandmother's property from the subdivision next door.  We have taken cattle panels and made an arch between the fence and the row so that vining plants can grow up it.  Right now, all we have is picking cucumbers and burpless cucumbers but I plan to get a couple of Banana Melon plants and maybe a watermelon.  My concern is with the melons cross-pollinating.  I also want to do some gourds.  I have bushel gourds, dipper gourds, and louffa gourds started at my house and plan to transplant them soon.  I also have four cayenne pepper plants on the end of the row. 

There is another little garden spot near our apiary (bee-yard) and reed bed.  I have onions and strawberries inter-planted there.  The onions seem to be doing pretty good but the strawberries - not so much.  I may have to re-plant them. I started with bare-root strawberries and honestly am not too familiar with them.  Maybe they'll pop through soon?  On the other half of that bed, I have four zucchini plants and a tabasco pepper plant. 

The last garden area at my grandmother's is the well-house.  It is 2 cinder blocks high and we have arched cattle panels over it, too.  We typically grow pole green beans over it.  We are running a bit behind getting them planted this year.  Beside the well house is a small garden plot (about 2 feet deep by about 10 feet long) and I have Jalapeno pepper plants and will be transplanting tomatillos there soon.  There's also a crookneck squash plant there.

I have tried to space our squash plants out this year.  The last few years, squash bugs have killed every squash plant before we get much off of them.  Fingers crossed we get **something** this year.

As for the garden at my house, I don't think I will have one this year.  I was looking at it last night and I'm not crazy about the soil or where it's currently located.  So my plan for this year is to get my yard straight and start planning - move the raised bed where I want it and work on amending the soil. I did clean out the blackberry bushes and they are going gang-busters...I hope I can beat the birds to some of the berries this year.  I haven't checked the blueberries.  I have a feeling they may not be getting enough sunlight.  I might need to move them or cut more trees.

Bees:

My dad picked up our new nuc just over a week ago and it's doing great.  He split our hive that we had left, too, so we have 3 hives now.  I think this weekend we may do 2 or 3 more splits - there are lots of queen cells.  The bees are truly a learning experience for us.  Our only goal this year is to get all of the hives through the winter.

I will update this weekend with pictures of everything!