I went up and did some needed dirt turning in the garden earlier today. I was going to put it off yet again until I ran across some photos I took late last year. Here are a few of those. that got me off of my ass and into the dirt. As I recall it was a salsa making day!
A countertop consumed by fresh salsa makins.
Now here are a few pictures of the garden while it was producing last year:
Some of plantings I’ll be making in the garden this year are ‘cautionary’: things that I’ll probably not harvest in earnest unless the economy tanks or the supply channels become more shaky. To that end I’ll be planting a great deal of those thing that can be easily preserved and provide good nutrition should the hard times come.
A few of the things (mainly some types of tomatoes, peppers, egg plant, cantaloupe, lettuce and cabbage) will be put in so as to harvest the seeds later in the year. Tomatoes are an example of this, over the last couple of years I accumulated seeds for 14 different types of tomatoes. I’ll be growing cherry tomatoes (Chadwick, Besser, Tommy Toe) for consumption and dehydrating. Two determinate paste varieties (Roma and Martino’s Roma) and one indeterminate (Amish Paste), are for this year’s canning and various sauces and, believe it or not, jam. Slicers are Homestead 24, Mortgage Lifter, Bonny Best, Beefsteak, and Red Brandywine. The rest (Katinka Cherry, Melanie’s Ballet, a VF variety of Roma, Bonny Best, and Red Brandywine) are being planted to keep a fresh supply of seeds on hand if needed.
I started all of my seedlings two weeks later this year. Last year they had grown sow large before I could get them into the garden that they were, in many cases root bound. My average frost date is said to be April 17th, but that ain’t the things have been breaking for the last 7 years or so: My garden goes in beginning on the 1st of May.