Vegetable & Flower Gardens - Progress to Date

It's high time for a gardening update! I had a very late start to my garden this year, due to the unusually long winter that we experienced here in Michigan. I started some of my seeds indoors in March, but wasn't able to plant my "early spring" seeds outside until April 21st (I really need to keep a log of these things next year...I had to scroll back and reference my Twitter stream to find a date!). Unfortunately, due to the weather or my poor gardening skills or some other unknown factor, almost all of my early spring seeds were duds. I have never had a problem growing peas before, but this year NONE of my snow peas sprouted, and only a few of my sugar peas did. Most of my Swiss chard did not germinate (ones I started indoors and transplanted are now slowly growing) -- Tom is super bummed about that one, I'm sure. And the lettuces have been really slow growing for whatever reason, too. We'll see if I'm able to harvest any of it.

The one thing that is growing really well: carrots. I grew carrots for the first time last year and wasn't super impressed with the results. They were multi-colored, though, so they looked pretty cool, if bizarre. I wasn't planning on growing them again this year, but I discovered I had extra seeds, so I planted them. Then, I found out that what I thought was cilantro popping up all over my garden turned out to be 90% carrots! Literally ALL over my garden. So, we will see how they grow this year -- hopefully the deer won't find them this year. Looks like our eyesight may be improving this year if all of these carrots actually grow!

I have actually started a couple plantings of beans. Among the first planting, I included some self-harvested bean-seeds from 2011. I wasn't sure if they would grow, but a bunch of them did! Good to know that I can harvest my own bean seeds and use them even two years later! I also planted potatoes, which are growing like crazy (and also popping up all over my garden from ones I didn't find while treasure hunting last year). The tomatoes have been transplanted into the garden -- and I'm following Duck's Fowl Gardening blog for advice with my tomatoes (and other plants). I planted corn this year, for the first time. It hasn't germinated yet, but should soon. We'll see if it grows...hopefully the neighbors won't think I'm crazy. We live in a neighborhood, so corn is a little out of place -- although there is a farm just down the road.

And the perennial garden? It's doing great! I have lots of fun photos from around my yard and garden: