Vegetable Gardening

[Eden]

Peas, beans, tomatoes (early and cherry) peppers, broccoli, chard, lettuce, parsley, basil and cilantro in here. The peas are going gangbusters - in fact I need to go out and pick some right now. I had bok choy and radishes, but they bolted for some reason.

[OakLeaf]

Green beans, lima beans, cannellini.
Two varieties of bell peppers, an Italian roasting pepper, a poblano, and jalapeños - although all the peppers have some kind of a disease about half of them seem to be recovering. Zucchini, butternut squash, small Hubbard-type squash, cucumbers, Charentais melons.
Chioggia beets, three varieties of carrots, parsnips (although the first row of parsnips I planted drowned; the second row I marked as parsnips turned out to be carrots and the third one, only three came up ... so I'll be planting another row probably tomorrow.
Red Russian and lacinato kale.
Romanesco cauliflower (if it heads ...) and broccoli.
Five varieties of tomatoes.
Genovese basil, lime basil, Italian parsley.
And my little strawberry patch, which didn't produce much this year - needs some attention.

I lost most of my perennial herbs to the polar vortex this winter. Oregano survived in spades, bee balm either survived or reseeded itself or both, thyme I thought was gone but when I went to pull it out there was a tiny little sprig of green. Peppermint and spearmint and lemon balm survived, no big surprise there - I actually tore all the peppermint and lemon balm out of my herb bed, figuring it'll come back when I least expect it. Spearmint I was smart enough to plant originally in a couple of remote locations in the lawn. Everything else was kaput. So I replanted lavender, winter savory, tarragon, sage, and another thyme plant I bought before I realized I had a survivor.

[snapdragen]

Couldn't do much this year, I got two small beds prepped and planted tomatoes and eggplant.

[smilingcat]

Our weekly grocery bill at TJ is down in the high 20's to low 30's. Mostly milk, avocado, yogurt, tofu and some junk food. And our visit to farmers market is to buy occasional meat, cherries in season and apricot in season. This weeks total grocery bill was bit high at just over $50 maybe $60. Growing lots of loose leaf lettuce, bok choi, rappinni, zucchini... peas and beans... freezing excess strawberries and soon blue berries along with logan and marion berries. Our fall/winter veggies are growing nicely, broccoli, kale, cabbage. We'll start seeds for cauliflower, napa cabbage, carrots, parsnips, delicata squash, acorn. We also raise our own chicken for egg and meat.

We are's on about 1/3 of an acre and we do intensive ag. on a very small scale. This is a run-up or practice to when I buy myself a small farm around 2-5 acres. Style of farming is called market gardening or micro-farm.Once I get a farm, I'll have a heated greenhouse to grow meyer lemon, bearss lime, ginger. And we will also be growing year round. This style of farming has very low $$ entry point and reasonable return on investment. Net income from my envisioned farm would give us reasonable lifestyle and we would NOT be enslaved to our farm.

Right now, we are starting new seeds every two weeks. rappini, bok choi, lettuce of all sorts. I lost track of all the things we are growing