Back from Ireland!

Here's what the garden looked like when I got back:



Not too bad really. The size of the tomato plants was shocking. And seeds I had planted at the last second before leaving seemed to do very well. Seems like almost all of the bean seeds came up:



Most cucumbers sprouted:


Even the random pumpkins made it:


There was a LOT of rain, even though it was VERY warm while I was gone. I had the automatic drip irrigation system set up to run half an hour a day, but that was very extraneous in late May and most of June.
It's interesting because even the town of Harrisonburg, only 7 miles away, had very little rain. I was just on the edge of the thunderstorms that were hitting the western mountains.

Planting tomatoes

Pretty sure our frost days are over for the spring. I planted 20 tomatoes this afternoon, along with some little basils and marigolds :)

Have sweet 100s, romas, Cherokee, Brandywine, and the colorful Black Sea Man.

First lettuce

Cosmo lettuce and my favorite, drunken woman lettuce (with red spots).

Peas Pleeze!

Here's what the pea plants looked like at the end of April:

Now they're more than twice as high. I have the usual sugar snap and snow peas. I'm also trying shelling peas this year.
Had the first pea blossoms bloom on the snow peas on May 5:

Building a new garden

I moved to a new house last summer! So I've almost finished building a terraced garden.
It's next to the shed. I figure the closer to the house, the better. The deer are a little less hesitant to come near the buildings.

Using regular landscaping logs and rebar rods.

The soil is a hard clay with, um, a LOT of rocks. Spent a large amount of time hacking rocks with a pickaxe. Added about 2 inches of compost across the garden. I wasn't sure the water pressure from the one spigot on the house would be high enough to push water up the hill, but is seems to be working fine:

The highest terrace is still not finished, but I started putting some plants in the lower levels anyway.

I'm trying Michihili cabbage this year (in the picture above). It's growing really well in pots on the porch and in the garden.

New home

I may post a few more garden pics here, but I've moved on to my own house, not a rental. I will miss some things at the old schoolhouse (views) and I am happy to leave others (mouse and insect-infested walls). Here are some new views of plants at the new place. Everything is on the very long deck right now- it will take some time to make a real garden plot here.

My sunflowers finally bloomed. These are some cherry-colored ones, only a few feet tall.

The 5-color pepper finally decided to move on from mono-purple coloration. These are great plants- pretty tough, and very colorful. They say the peppers are quite HOT- I may dry some and try them in stir-fry.

Basil mania- I have regular basil and fancy purple ruffle basil, grown from seed. Some of the purple basil is sort of green and flecked with purple, and not that ruffly at all. But it all seems to taste the same.

Tomato, tomato!

I have too many tomatoes to keep count. I expected this year to be like last year- there were many storms last year in July and August, and most of my tomatoes and plants were destroyed by hail and wind. So, expecting this to happen again this year, I planted more tomato plants. But the storms and hail haven't shown up. So instead, I've ended up with this:

And this:

And today, THIS:

Yes, something like 20 pounds of tomatoes ripening in 4 days. I already made like 12 cups of tomato sauce and dried hundreds of cherry tomatoes; I'm going to have to find more tomato products to create.