2026 Garden!

 The garden is finally planted. Here, I usually plant by mid to late April. 

This year, it was May 9 and 10 when I was finally able to get the plants in the ground. I still have three mineral tubs I can plant something in. I'm probably going to leave at least two of them not planted and use those for planting zucchini at various intervals to try to outsmart the vine borers.

Here are a few photos of what the garden looks like today.

This is the little compost bin I had in Texas. I used it when we first moved here but then Vince built a nice, wooden compost bin but I think it attracted mice and I don't want mice in my compost! We couldn't find the base to this plastic bin but this weekend Vince trimmed a big pine-ish tree that had grown out of control and found the base to the compost bin so I can begin using this again.     

You may remember that we had a volunteer tomato that came up last year. It has tiny (a bit bigger then spoon tomatoes), super sweet tomatoes and Cooper LOVED those. Every time he went outside, he went straight to that tomato plant and I would give him a tomato or two. I saved seeds but so many of them came up volunteer again this year, I didn't need to any that I had started. That's three of them in that tub that I moved but any bed that was near "Cooper's tomato" now has more tomato plants in it.

There are other tomatoes. I think I planted about about 24 tomatoes - some slicing, some canning.

The rabbits love sleeping in the raised beds. You can see where at least one of them made his bed in the potatoes. Those rabbits are such a pain and about the time we think they're all gone, we see more baby bunnies. Vince had already put chicken wire around some of the beds but this weekend, he added it to those that didn't have it. 

 

You can get an idea of the garden layout here. To the left where there's an open area, we had a couple of raised beds but Vince moved those this year. We're putting up a chain link fence, about 20' x 20' in that area so the dogs can play. We have a wood fence but there are places where they might go under it plus on both sides of the house is a retaining wall and I'm afraid the dogs will get to running and go over those walls and land 4 - 5' below on the concrete patio so . . they're getting a fenced play yard within the wood fenced area.

These little peppers are already producing. There are four purple peppers on two of those plants! I hope this means I will get a good crop of peppers. I think I planted about 25 peppers - giant Marconi, bell - green and purple, jalapeno, cayenne, poblano and I can't remember what else.

Above are the candy roaster sprouts. I love these and am so hoping I can keep them safe from the vine borers.

The rhubarb is doing great. I made a triple batch of strawberry rhubarb jam last week - 13 half pints. I hope to get that much made again this week. I'm trying to get the strawberry rhubarb jam made while the amazing strawberries are available. Thank goodness I don't have to replant rhubarb every year.

Yesterday I repotted the bay leaves. I had two bay leaf trees (way smaller than these) when we lived in Kentucky. I would bring them into the garage when nights were going to be colder than about 30 degrees. They say they will survive down to 20 degrees but I bring the in if it's going to be 30 or colder. But, one night in Kentucky I forgot to bring them in and they both died. I looked for years for more bay leaf trees. In Texas, either the Fed Ex or UPS guy told me he had seen some at a nursery in Abilene. Since we went to Abilene, about 70 miles from us, for most of our medical issues and for the vet who treated Rita's eyes, we ran by the nursery on one trip and got two bay leaf trees.

They both were fine for several years, then one of them started looking sickly. Both were in pots and they had ants in the pots. They were just full of ants. I would pour Neem oil/water through the pots often and one of the plants did fine and one seemed to be dead. I kept treating it and babying it but it appeared to be dead. The greenhouse was near the woods so one day I threw the dead bay leaf out in the woods. 

A couple of years later, we were out in that area and something bright green caught my eye. That "dead" bay leaf had started growing. I grabbed it, put it in a pot of dirt and it grew. 

Now you can't even tell which tree was the "dead" one. I keep them in pots because we have to bring them in and out of the garage all winter. The two big pots are the bay leaf trees. The 5 gallon bucket has a basil plant in it.

Last but not least, the fence guys are here. They will set the posts today and be back "later this week" to get the fence up. I think Cooper and Oscar are going to love being able to go out there and play.