Here it Comes!

APRIL

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Ah, the bounties of the garden come to fruition in summers golden, hot days. The beginnings seem so small and sparse. You spend the spring time preparing your soil, adding amendments to get the proper acidic levels and pulling out any leftover unwanteds. You til in the compost that you have been cookin up for just such an occasion. You labor lovingly over the precious albeit tiny seeds willing them to mature into the makings of a divine Chef salad. You water. You wait. You feed. You wait. The harvest can seem so far off. A little trimming, a little training, some weeding and some more waiting and then you begin to reap a beautiful reward.

This week I am seeing tell tale signs of just that. The red and green Romaines have been amazing this year. If you pick the leaves of the outside of the plants, the insides will keep giving you more.


The snap peas hardly have a chance to get fat without an eager hand snatching them off for a little sweet snack.

The tomatillas are going crazy and will be keeping me busy canning for sure. These plants are happiest in full sun and require little extra attention except for staking them securely as they get huge.

The wax beans too show signs of great yield, that is if I don't stop eating them right off the vines.

The Scarlet Runner Beans and Kentucky Pole beans are

climbing quite nicely up and over the garden trellis. Train them well and they will run and run and run which translates into more beans for you.

And the Sugar Baby Watermelons even show signs of producing a late harvest. I am experimenting with several of my plants as far as location this year. The watermelons are one of my experimental specimens. I have two plants in the garden and two in the greenhouse. The plants in the greenhouse are considerably larger. Moral of that story, they need lots of heat.

The sage and dill are ready for harvest and drying. Boy will the dill come in handy when it is time to start pickling.

I think the produce item I am most excited about is the tomatoes. For the first time since living in this area, I have red tomatoes before August. I am tempted to do the happy garden dance. (This date, time and location will not be posted.) Payton and I ate the red one this afternoon. It was so good, way more flavorful than any store bought tomatoes.

To keep your tomatoes producing nice red fruit, keep the leaves that have no blossoms pinched off. The tend to suck the plants growing energy from the actual fruit.

As the weeks move on, the production will increase and so will the work. The next season of the garden is harvesting and preserving. I am hopefully anticipating doing a lot of canning from the garden this year.

No truly great meal is complete without the aromatic flavor of garlic. Whether you prefer it minced up in chicken, roasted in mashed potatoes, stuffed into pickles and dilled beans, or just straight off the grill with a little olive oil, there is no replacement for this garden must. Extremely easy to grow, very resistant, and dries out in a few hot hours of sunshine, this little gem is an essential garden addition.

Enjoy your gardens if you have them and other peoples if you don't. What a great blessing it is to be able to sow and reap your own provisions and then share from your bounty what God gives you in abundance.

If you have any gardening questions, post them to the comment section and I will try to help.