Peppers, Potatoes, and Cherry Tomatoes

My vegetable garden has changed a lot in the past month!

A couple of weeks ago I planted the pepper seedlings I had started from seed. They were a little slow going this year. I started them around the 1st of March, but even by late April I wasn't sure they were ready to transplant yet. Then I realized I didn't have enough pots or potting soil, so I had to make a supplies run (and figure out curbside shopping). But they're finally planted.

My husband loves peppers and experimenting with different ways of using them. In addition to cooking with them, he has also pickled them and made his own hot sauce. Most winters I hand him the seed catalog and let him pick out what varieties of peppers he wants me to grow that year. Usually it's jalapeno peppers and then something weird. This year's seeds ended up being 'Mellow Star' Shishito peppers and a jalapeno variety called 'Jedi'. (He's a Star Wars fan. I had to.)

We've found from experience that hot peppers really thrive in large pots. Jalapenos, especially, love heat and sunshine. We've also learned that deer love pepper plants. So I started planting a large pot of each pepper variety and putting them out near the vegetable beds where they get lots of sun (but are more vulnerable to deer). The I plant a pot of each close to the house where they don't get as much sun (but where the deer will definitely leave them alone). That way, I'm guaranteed some measure of success.

What little I could find on growing Shishito peppers suggested that they are used to cooler climates. I fear they won't tolerate our long, hot summers like jalapenos do. My vegetable and herb beds were pretty much full, but I found one space near the chives where I could make room for a Shishito pepper plant. Since the soil would be cooler in the ground, I am curious to see if that plant does any better than the ones in the pots. What can I say--the scientist in me is always collecting data.

In addition to peppers, I also started basil from seed this year. I had a ton of old basil seeds of various varieties from previous years--some as much as 5 years old. The germination rate goes down the longer they sit around, so I wasn't sure how many plants I would actually get. But I decided to clean out my seeds and just plant ALL of the basil seeds and see what happened. I ended up with a few more plants than I knew what to do with. I finally cleared a spot near the chives to plant a few, and just potted up the rest in small nursery pots I had, to either keep or give away.

Meanwhile...boy have the other vegetables grown! The potatoes, especially, have kind of taken over.

Left to right: tomatoes, potatoes, bell peppers (somewhere under the potatoes), asparagus

The asparagus continues to send up new shoots every few weeks!

My tomatoes are still managing to grow while competing for space with the potatoes.

I even have baby cherry tomatoes.

And a baby zucchini! Look closely under the giant yellow flower.

Not all of my veggies have thrived this year though. I got a few tiny radishes, but maybe only half of them got large enough to even think about eating. Most of them were on the skinny side. The ones I did pick took about 5 weeks or so to mature. I picked the last of them over the weekend since the heat was setting in.

This radish was the roundest of all them--and the pinkest.

My bush beans have also been a struggle this year. About a third of the plants were eaten from the roots up and killed entirely by something tunneling. The internet tells me I have all the signs of voles, though I haven't seen them in person. The deer found the rest of the plants, and I discovered this scene one morning a couple of weeks ago:

I didn't think the fence would actually make a difference, or that deer would bother to walk through an open gate. (Our fence is not that tall. Larger deer can jump over if they really want to.) The fact that the bean plants got eaten after I left the gate open one night probably isn't a coincidence, though. I didn't give up on my beans entirely. I kept watering the leafless stalks to see what they would do, and over time they grew some leaves. They're stunted and will never be the same, but I did find a few small beans today!

All I can say is, I am thankful I am not actually dependent on my garden to feed my family. The world hasn't ended yet, and I can still find food at the grocery store. Anything I can harvest this summer will just be icing on the cake.

Back to the Cottage Garden

While I've spent a lot of time on my vegetables this spring, the thing that really got me into gardening was the ornamental part of gardening. I love the beauty of gardens--from the flowers to the shrubs.

If you read some of my old posts, you'll see I spent a lot of time planting shrubs and perennials during those first couple of years in our house. I wanted a cottage garden look fitting of our English-style cottage. Since they come back year after year, they don't need quite as much attention as the vegetables, but they still need upkeep from time to time.

I spent much of my last two weekends working on some of the flower beds. I started on the rose bed in the very front. I planted two lavender plants there back in 2013. One of them died last year (or so I thought), so I bought another one. When I started cleaning out that bed though, I found that the lavender plant had started growing back from the nub that was left. I planted he new one in there anyways, hoping to fill out the bed a little more in between the two.

I thought this lavender plant was dead, and cut it back to a nub. It rewarded me with new growth this spring. Now I just need to keep the oregano from taking over.

I tucked the lavender plant I just bought back between the two old lavenders.

A side note about lavender. French lavender is notoriously hard to grow in most of the Southeast. It doesn't like our heat and humidity. If anyone wants to grow lavender here in Georgia, I recommend Spanish lavender--it tolerates the humidity much better. But I liked the look of French lavender better, and somehow, seven years later, it's still alive. I swear I found the right variety and the right location. I bought 'Munstead,' a dwarf lavender variety, from my favorite local nursery. I planted it against a retaining wall along the sidewalk, so it gets plenty of sunshine, good air circulation, and good drainage. The other secret: I water it as little as possible. Most of what it gets is rainfall and whatever runs down the hill. During the hot summer months, I'll water on particularly dry weeks. Somehow that formula has worked.

Lavender with the roses

In my garden I mostly tend to stick to perennials and shrubs, since they're a gift that keeps on giving. However I have a couple of spots in the front where I'll rotate through annual flowers to get an extra splash of color, and I'll usually plant a few in pots, as well. For this summer, I decided on lime green coleus, white fan flower, and this Calibrachoa whose color I just couldn't resist.

'Colorblaze Lime Time' Coleus

'Whirlwind White' Scaevola - also known as fan flower. I liked the upright growth habit of this hybrid.

'Superbells Holy Moly!' Calibrachoa

I find it hard to find flowers that will stay beautiful through our scorching summers, but I had good experience with coleus and fan flower in the past. Both manage to still look healthy in July and August. The calibrachoa was more of a toss up. Fingers crossed that it makes it. I also changed out one of my planters with a coleus and fan flower, plus this fuschia ivy leaf geranium I loved. Maybe it's because I spent so much time in Florida's Palm Beaches, but I think lime green and hot pink is a great summer color combination.

It's going to be good year for my roses. I never got around to giving them their annual pruning or fertilizer, but they look as happy as can be at the moment. I think it was because of all the rain we got this winter/spring. They just soaked it up and gave them a nice healthy start to the year. Even when plants look dormant, they're still "growing," it just looks different.

'Soaring Spirits' is looking particularly healthy this year.

Well, my work on the flower beds is far from over, so more on that soon!