Five weeks is all it took to go from this…
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To this…
One of the ladies from the Building Urban Gardens class that we took at the Garfield Park Conservatory stopped by to get a few plants. She pointed out the fact that what I have been calling turnips are actually mustard greens of the slick leaf variety. My brain said they were turnips, so my eyes said, “Okay. If that’s what you say.” It’s a good thing I actually like mustard greens.
So, yesterday was the first harvest of 2009.
6.8 ounces. Yay!!
The “hoop house” really made a difference. The whole bed was planted on 3-15. The same day I planted the bed with the cover, I planted seeds in the spot I reserve for my elephant ear. 
There’s a world of difference between the two. (Left to right: lettuce, spinach, raddish, beets)
The “hoop house” even outproduced some of the lettuce I started in the house in a long window type planter. Some of the lettuce I kept in the long planter and some I transplanted into paper pots , which didn’t work out so well because they never really grew much in the paper pots. I later transplanted some of the planter lettuce  into the yard. They’re in the first four rows.  Most of the lettuce that germinated was the red lettuce, and they’re kind of hard to see against the dark background. They’re growing, but slowly.
The lettuce didn’t grow well in the paper pots, but they didn’t die either. On 4-14 I transplanted some of them into this self-watering container that was sitting outside from last year.
They just started putting on a little growth over the last week (during those warm days).
Well, I guess we have the results of one of my garden experiments.  Newly germinated cold tolerant seeds that get snowed on will continue to grow with the help of frost protection.
The results were so nice, I had to do it twice.
And it’s working great. In this bed is the chives and garlic chives, the Egyptian walking onions, the few surviving garlic plants, and the strawberries from last year. Once the cover went on, the strawberry leaves got larger almost over night. I planted about six tomatoes and a globe basil in the tomatoes’ squares because I read that the basil enhances the flavor of the tomatoes. I planted the borage, one squash, onion bulbs, I seeded a couple of squares with carrots and a couple of squares with turnips…really, turnips, not mustards.  I planted a few of the lemon cukes and a couple squares with bush beans.  A few marigolds went in and a couple of petunias.Â
The third bed is planted with broccoli interplanted with lettuce; kale, which hasn’t hardly grown since it got it’s true leaves; collards, which aren’t doing much better; bell peppers; corn; potatoes. That’s a lot going on into 32 square feet, but we’re supposed to be able to plant “intensively,” aren’t we?
I may have a raspberry or two…
(containerized raspberries al la Free Cycle)
I may have a blueberry or two…
(containerized blueberry I ordered)
This blueberry plant looks pretty good, but the buy one/get one free for just about $10 looked so bad to me that I complained about them. They sent me two more replacements, but they weren’t much better looking.
The two on the left were the original and the two on the right were the replacements. Had I known that these plants would have been so small I would have gotten something else. But they’re mine now. Hopefully they’ll start growing.
Here’s a shot of the perennial bed. The bleeding hearts are doing especially well this year.
The seedlings. They’re holding their own. I’m truly tired of shuffling them in and out, and it makes even less sense now since I’ve planted every square foot in the raised beds. Very soon, I’m going to pass a few on to my mother-in-law, my cousin and a couple neighbors. I still feel compelled to make sure they’re hardened off before I pass them on. I’d hate for them to die after all the work I put into them.
And last, but not least…
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