Can You Believe This?

36,000 tomatoes from one plant. And that’s not the record.

My Container Garden and some Seedlings

Here is my container garden minus my banana plant. It is happily sitting in the somewhat shade to my left. Mostly mints that will need dividing next year, 1 hydrangea that I need to transplant, my rhubarb, and my sad looking rosemary (can't wait to finally plant it permanently).
Here is my chocolate flower plant that made it through the winter although it didn't bloom for me last year, it has a ton of blooms for me this year. Yeah!
My little pumpkin seedlings are emerging. Woot!

The Garden in the Backyard

Here's a view of everything.
My largest artichoke. Hoping we get some this summer.

Here is my 6' bed. Currently it has elephant garlic (that I finally fertilized and mulched) and one dino kale that came up, two carrots, and a six pack of swiss chard that I planted. I will add some marigolds and nasturtiums soon. I will try to remember to add another kale. Need more for my smoothies.

Working on the Full Plot

We've been working on the big plot getting it ready to put some compost down. There is a patch of strawberries that needs to be trimmed up so that it can get watered in one of the rows with t-tape. They are starting to bear strawberries so were hoping to eat some soon. ;-) I'm debating on what I'm going to with the lavender in the corner. Might just leave it, but trim it up a bit.

Saw someone with a ton of bamboo in thier front yard and scored bamboo for our trellis. Yeah! The guy was so nice. We took about 15 thick stalks. Some were thick enough by themselves and others we are going to tie together. Can't wait to erect our tepee. James will be so happy to have his own little hideout at the garden esp. when it gets warmer.

Our Progress So Far

Here is my gardening buddy posing for me in front of our half plot at the community garden. We are almost done. Whew! I can only go as fast as his attention span will let us. He's been so good about helping me. He loves to get the weeds and put them in the wagon and help me throw them into the weed pile. We love looking for bugs too. We've been seeing a lot of those rolly polly bugs (pill bugs), a worm here or there, and we've been seeing a lot of lady bug larvae wandering around (yeah for them!). Hopefully we can get this plot done by the end of the week and then we can start work on our full sized plot. :-)
Oh and then I can start planting marigolds to start with. I'm so excited!

My Little Greenhouse

My greenhouse keeping everybody warm and cozy. So far I have tomatoes and cosmos in there.

I'm going to have to update my pic of my garden plot because I'm almost halfway through weeding and I'm so proud. We've been at for more than a week. It's starting to look a lot better without all the weeds.

My Community Garden Plots! Yeah!

I finally got my plots at the community garden. Yippee! This one is my biggest project. It's a half plot. To the left is the owner of the other half. She couldn't keep up with the whole thing so luckily I was able to attain it. The weeds are a lot of work though. Whew! My back and legs are a little sore. So far in about a day in a half (4 1/2 hours) I got as far as the mulched with straw part. I put newspaper down first and then the straw on top to really keep out the weeds. Crossing my fingers it works. Then later I will put two rows in. That way I can irrigate them easily. James has been a big help. Luckily he is letting me get in about an hour and a half each time we go. He likes looking for bugs, esp. the lady bugs. Those keep his interest for a long time. He does like to help put the weeds in the garden cart and take a ride to dump them out. He loves to throw the weeds in the weed pile. As soon as we get the weeds taken care of though we won't be at the garden as much until we actually need to get ready to plant after the last frost date. I think I'm going to put the artichokes in this plot, flowers, and whatever other veggie that don't fit in my big plot.
Here is my second plot. It is a full 20x24. Click on the pic to make it bigger if you need to. Whoever had it last mulched really well. So, only a couple weeds to take care of. They did leave behind a rosemary plant and some strawberries, but I don't think the berries are going to produce, atleast it doesn't look like it. Oh, and the right hand corner is a raised bed, but I think I'm going to take that out and put the teepee trellis for James there so it doesn't shade anybody else's garden. Mainly tomatoes, squash and beans will go here besides the companion plants that go with those. So exciting!

Transplants

Happy little Cosmo transplants. Sigh..... Can't wait to plant these.
Very happy tomato plants. Coustralee and Stump O' The World.
Not so happy tomato plants. Live and learn I guess. Now I know better to wait a little longer on transplanting. Lost about half I think. Sungold's. Bummer.
Happy little tomato plants waiting to get big enough to transplant. ;-)

A bee! Yeah! Not all is lost. ;-)
Densely planted seedlings.
Sungold tomatoes transplanted.

Starting Seeds

Mini-greeenhouse. The veggies.
The Flowers.
The whole set-up.

Well, looks like were moving fast towards seed starting. I can't wait. Got everything set-up (well, except for what I posted below, the newspaper pots, I need to make LOTS of those, probably 500 or so). I just need to test the water bed heater pad to see if it will work for me. I ordered seeds from http://www.tomatofest.com/ and http://www.rareseeds.com/ . I can't wait to have them in my sweaty little palms. It's like Christmas when you get seeds. You have in your hands the starting of the next 7 months of work and the end result a yummy big tomato. I can hope it works out better this year with tomatoes. I'm armed with more knowledge and know how about these tomatoes this year. I can only hope I'm victorious with my feeding and watering of them. I'm also entering myself into a giant tomato contest. For more fun than anything. Hoping to get atleast a noteable mention. Also, selling tomato, herb, and flower starts this year. Hope to make some income. We'll see. It's not a big investment so I'm not looking to lose much if it doesn't work out.
So far this is what I'm looking at planting this year.
Tomato's
Arkansas Traveler
Brandywine
Delicious
Illinois Beauty
Cherokee Purple
Caspian Pink
San Marzano
Marvel Stripe
Cuostralee
Stump O' The World
Eva Purple Ball-Tomato Seeds
Aunt Ginny's Purple
Cherokee Choc.
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Siletz
Giant Belgium (because I've entered the giant tomato contest at idig)
Brandywine - Red
Wapsipinicon Peach
Pineapple
Flame (Hillbilly)

Peppers
Peter Peppers (because they look like what they are called and my BIL wanted to try them )
Early Jalepeno
Red Cheese Pepper

Casino Gold Corn

Bush Slicer Cucumber
Mexican Sour Gurkin

Basil
Genovese
Profumo di Genova

Clemson Spineless Okra

Dark Green Zucchini

Pumpkins
New England Sugar Pie
Mini - Jacks
Musquee de Provence
batwings (I know they are hybrid, but they are so darn cute! )

Butternut Squash

Beans
Ura Pole Beans
Tri-color Pole Beans
Purple Hull Cowpea

Beet Berry

Improved Green Globe Artichoke

Moon and Stars Watermelon

Nasturtiums and African Marigolds to keep the bugs away.

Part I of Newspaper Pot Making

It's pretty easy. Hope this helps someone who wants to re-plant transplants at a lower cost. I'm definately using it. ;-)

Part II of Newspaper Pot Making

All finished. I found these instructions at www.Tomatoville.com

My Seed Starting Set-up So Far For My Gardens

Shop lights and heating pads. One professional gardening heating pad and I'm also going to try a waterbed heating pad. It has a temp. control and everything. So I'm hopeful it will work. We'll see! This will have lots of seed trays in it at the end of the month. Yeah! Oh, and fans to keep them from going leggy.