Let the garden experiment commence

Yesterday, I started some seeds for planting in the garden between the beginning and end of May.  In theory, mid-April is a good time for planting as we should be at the end of "last frost of the season," but quite often we get one or two freezing nights afterward.  The sun was beautiful and warm--a great day to be outside.

I started six each of the following:

Crnkovic Yugoslavian--pink tomato
Black from Tula--purple tomato
Goldman's Italian American--red tomato
Ananas Noire--striped tomato
Quadrato D'Asti Rosso--red bell pepper
Red Cheese Pepper--red bell pepper

I started eight of each of the following:

Black Hungarian Pepper--hot pepper
Leutschauer Paprika--hot pepper
Tendercrisp--celery  **I planted 8 starter pots of this with two or three seeds in each.  Seeds are itty bitty and I thought it better to be safe than sorry.

I started six of the following:

Delikatesse--cucumber
Eagle Pass--okra

I also directly sowed about 48 French Breakfast Radish seeds in a long planter.  We will continually plant and pick these so I wanted something simple and close to the back door for easy pick/eat salad toppings.

Today it is misty and rainy so there isn't much gardening happening outside.  Inside I am soaking my beans for a few hours before I pot them [Mayflower Pole Bean, Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole Bean, and Purple Podded Pole Bean].  I will also pot the Musquee de Provence Winter Squash seeds as well.

This weekend looks like the date for popping the Bull's Blood Beets, St. Valery Carrots, and Rocky Top Lettuce Mix in the ground.  I'll also pop in the Tall Telephone Peas as they can handle the cooler weather.  I just have to set up the trellis first.  They can grow to 8 feet!  I might try them against the back fence as well to see if they will respond to the area.

I wanted to grow watermelon, but I figured with the squash being so sprawly, I'd tackle them first and see how it goes.  If I can wrangle them easily, then I'll add watermelon to the list next year.

I ordered my seeds through Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds this year.  The prices for everything we ordered was very reasonable.  We even got a gift packet of Parisienne Carrots!

For flowers, we ended up with 2 pansies (Orange Sun, Laura), cosmos (Sensation Mix), multicolored pinks (Baby Doll Dianthus), Hazelwood Blues Morning Glory (a mix of light to dark blue flowers) to put over the mailbox and along parts of the fence, Radio Calendula, and French marigolds (Harlequin).