Sunday, January 4, 2009

It's Been a While!

Hurricane Ike pretty much took the wind out of my sails for gardening last fall. So much was destroyed, although I got a few more cherry tomatoes.

I put in a winter garden - broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, spinach, lots of lettuce, turnips and carrots.

The family was here last week for Christmas. I weeded the very weedy beds before they got here. The kids enjoyed pulling up carrots but not so much washing them. We ate salad from the lettuce garden and plenty of cooked and raw carrots. The broccoli had just begun to flower so we didn't eat any of it.

Today I cut a couple of broccoli heads and pulled up another 1/3 of the carrots. Still some left. Planted more lettuce and beets. I left the okra plants since they are leafing out again - we'll see what happens with them. Pulled up all of the tomato plants and harvested the last few tomatoes - one medium sized one (no idea which kind of plant it came from) and a couple of hands full of cherry tomatoes. There were dozens and dozens more green cherry tomatoes but they haven't ripened in a couple of cold weeks so I gave up on them. They were falling off the vines green.

I ordered more potato eyes - Idaho potatoes this time. Potatoes were so unsuccessful last time I just want to see if it was the variety, location, fertilizer, or if they just won't grow here. Also ordered Cherokee tomato seeds - the black tomato variety. I got one Cherokee tomato last year before the hurricane and it was delicious so I thought I'd try them again.

Had a request from the sons in law for peppers so I'll get some jalapeno seeds and plant some soon.

So, we're in a bit of a lull for gardening right now but I haven't given up!