Sustainability

I am lame and have no photos for this post.
In my defense, it has been raining for days. Like REALLY raining.
In April, we've had almost 11 inches of rain. almost 2 inches just over the weekend.
That's a lot of rain.

We should have nice weather thursday and friday, so I'll try to get outside and take some pictures, but until then...just a wordy journal post to document what we planted in our garden, this year. Here we go...
a * indicates something new to our garden this year

2011
tomatoes:
-4 heirloom celebrity tomatoes
-4 big boy tomatoes
-4 better boy tomatoes

squash:
-4 yellow squash [starter]
-2 zucchini squash [starter...zuc seeds didn't sprout]
*-4 butternut squash (two from seed packets and two from a squash that I ate and harvested the seeds from myself) [seeds]
*-3 flying saucer squash (the disc shaped light green squash. I don't know the real name for it...but another nickname is patty pan squash) [seeds]

herbs:
*-2 mint -[a transplant!]-I dug up a couple wild mint shoots from Jill's garden and transplanted them to my front yard. They're going gangbusters (seriously, I feel lame just saying that. It seems appropriate, but now that I see it typed, I feel like a loser. Gangbusters? really? This blog has really taken downhill turn toward Patheticville. My apologies). Mint reminds me of my Mima. It's one of the few things I remember about her house in Gualala, Ca. I can't wait for it to take over the little corner where it's planted, and for the pinkish blooms in the late summer.
*-1 greek oregano [free starter-thank you RS Enrichment Meeting]
*-1 thyme [another free starter]
-1 basil [and to think I almost didn't GO to RS that night! My garden thanks you for the herbs class, Nancy.]
-1 lime basil [starter-yeah, I like basil]
-1 lemon basil [starter from farmers market]
-chives [seeds]
*-40+ sweet red onions [starter bulbs]
*-40+ sweet vidalia yellow onions [starter bulb]
*-4 garlic [bulb]
-2 rows green onions [seeds]

peppers
-8 sweet green bell peppers [starters] (I JUST ran out of frozen peppers from last year. How's that for awesome?!)
*-4 banana peppers [starters] (oopsie...I thought these were bell peppers when I bought them. I have no clue what to do with them, anyone have a recipe to share?)
-3 jalapeno [starters]

*potatoes
I'm pretty excited/nervous about these. I've never grown potatoes before.
*-8 baby reds...well, I realized, I WAS growing potatoes when I cleaned the top of my fridge! I had 4 potatoes left in a bag with 1 inch ear sprouts on them. Gross. I cut them into chunks and threw them under a pile of dirt. 1 week later...little green plants are growing in my yard! I'm stoked.
*-6 fingerling potatoes-inspired by the successful sprouting of the reds, I decided to try some more. I bought a large bag of mixed fingerlings at Sams Club for Easter dinner, and saved a couple of gold, red, and purple fingerlings. They don't have sprouts on them, but I think I'll plant them anyway and see what crops up!

flowers: (I don't know why I bother. I have a black thumb for flower growing)
*-lavendar
*-dahlias
-petunias
*-nasturtiums
-marigolds [starters] these are to keep the buggies off my veggies
-giant sunflowers [seeds]

other veggies:
-8 broccoli [starters] hopefully, these will not be eaten by caterpillars, this year
*-2 rows pettite sweet carrots [seeds] the 3 varieties of carrots that we planted last year grew well, but didn't taste so great. I've heard the baby carrot varieties are sweeter. I hope so! Either way, it's fun for the kids to pick them, and I'm sure the chickens will eat them if we don't.
-3 rows spinach [seeds]
*-tomatillo [starter]
-burbless cucumbers [seeds]
*-armenian cucumbers [seeds]

Fruit:
*grapes: to grow up the pergola
We planted 10 grapevines in the rain on Saturday. SO much rain! I hope they don't wash away! My backyard is a swamp.
*-white himrod seedless
*-red crimson seedless
*-concord seedless

melons:
-4 watermelon [seeds]
-2 cantaloupe [seeds]

berries:
every year in March, I think they are dead. Then in a matter of days, the bushes spring back to life and are full of bright green leaves and little flowers.
-blackberries
-raspberries
-blueberries....the raspberries are smothering them. If I don't move these quick, I doubt they'll make it.
*-strawberries...this will also be new this year. I never grow them because it seems like a waste of garden space for such a small output of fruit. But then I noticed that Darcie and Katie's strawberries came back from last year, and I saw Becky's rockin' strawberry patch, and well...it looks really good. I want one.

Trees:
-the montgomery cherries have doubled this year!
-peach-the fruit last year had some kind of disease on it. Sad. I talked to the local nursery guys on Friday, and they said it might be something treatable. I'm going to take a sample in this year and see if we can get it taken care of.
-no pears on the pear tree, yet again. Boo. Maybe I need a pollinator?


*-Kiwi! This is going to be a newbie to our yard this year. To say that I'm excited is a major understatement. Think about it, about 50 years ago, people around here didn't even know what a kiwi fruit even was. And now, I will have it right here, growing behind my house. Yummy.

I love that our backyard is full of food.

My children will grow up knowing where their food comes from, that carrots are roots, potatoes are tubers, and that broccoli is a flower.

And if I were Martha, to that I would say, "it's a good thing".