It's Gardening Time!

Finally, the throes of winter are long gone and warm weather is here to stay!

For awhile anyway.

One of my favorite things about this time of the year is getting my garden going and harvesting the produce. There's nothing more rewarding then seeing the fruits of your labor knowing it was your hard work that brought forth all the delicious and healthy food!

I like to document my garden here every year not only to share with you all but so I can look back and remember just what I planted and where each year as that changes.

Click photos to enlarge.

Amazing the growth in just one week!

A week ago our strawberries started coming in. As you can see in the photo above, I ripped out a section of our berry patch as it needed restarted. Once the strawberries around the edge are done (where I ripped out the rest), I'll take those out as well. It's hard to see but I did plant new strawberry roots in that area. Since they won't spread much this year, I also put some tomatoes there to utilize that spot just this year. I might also put some more onions and radishes there as well since they are both quick growing.

This is just what we picked last night. Once we hit full peak, we'll pick 4 times this each day! Lots of jam and frozen berries will be put up.

It's hard to tell by the size of this photo how large our garden is so I had my soon-to-be 4 year old go stand at the back of the garden while I took this photo from my second story deck.

Yes it's large but I love the ability to grow so many things!

What is growing this year:

• 2 blueberry bushes
• strawberries
• asparagus
• 26 tomato plants (5 varieties)
• 8 cucumber plants
• green beans
• 6 jalapeno plants
• 2 cayenne pepper plants
• 6 zucchini plants
• 2 eggplant
• 4 brussel sprout plants
• 12 pepper plants (red, green & yellow)
• lettuce
• spring mix
• radishes
• onions
• herbs (parsley, cilantro, basil, oregano)

I always try to plant something new each year and this year my new veggie to grow is brussel sprouts. Quick growing things like radishes, onions and green beans I plant in rotations so I always have some coming in and am not overwhelmed all at once with them. Also, since they don't take up much room, I plant those things in between rows. Right now I have green beans coming up between my cucumbers since by the time the cucumbers spread, the green beans will be done and I'll pull them.

Mmmm radishes! I can sit and eat a whole bowl of these any time of the day!

Do you plant a garden or grow a box garden on your deck? What do you plant? Check out my past post for more garden tips!