Saturday, May 31, 2014

First Time Gardener: End of May Update


Happy Saturday friends!

My little container garden is chugging right along. While I do sometimes look at my little corner of the patio and wish I had a huge garden out in the yard, I have to remind myself that this is Year 1.  This is my first time trying to grow, well, basically anything so it's wise to start small while I'm learning. Almost everything I've planted has sprouted, which I'm extremely proud of. Nothing has died, save for my oregano at the beginning of the season. I've got little, tiny green tomatoes growing, and true leaves starting on my zucchini. Let's take a look!

Tiny green tomatoes!


Beefsteak tomato plant.

Roma tomato plant.

Bell pepper sprouting. This pot (today) has at least 12 sprouts now. I only took this picture 2 days ago!

Chard sprouts.

Chard.

Cucumber sprouts.

Zucchini sprouts.

Here's my little container garden. Year 1. I can't wait to compare this to what I'm doing in 10 years.

And my herb garden? Doing fab! I went through and pretty much harvested ALL the basil, but it's starting to come back as you can see.

The parsley is growing like there's no tomorrow. I've already cleanly harvested it 3 times, and it still looks like this. More parsley pesto for us!

Mom was right. The mint is out of control. It's humungous!

The mint spreads itself like this. This particular vine is try to escape the box.

The thyme is also spreading out.
So, Year 1 is off to a great start. Now, all I've got to do is invest in a canning system so I'm prepared when the veggies start rolling in. I've been doing research, trying to figure out if I go with a water bath canner or a pressure canner. There's a lot of information out there, but as of now, I'm leaning toward a pressure canner. Just so I have more options. We'll see. It'll be Year 1 for canning foods as well. If anything, I'll be able to say I learned a ton this year!

Have a great weekend everyone!

3 comments:

  1. So awesome that it's off to a good start and that everything has sprouted. You might have a natural green thumb :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is some good looking basil. You can make pesto and freeze it.

    Madonna
    MakeMineLemon

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Funny you should mention that! I actually read an article suggesting you can freeze pesto. If you vacuum seal it, it stays good up to 9 months in the freezer. Needless to say, I've gotten quite a few batches of pesto into the freezer! :)

      Delete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.