Garden 2011

This year, with the odd weather, and the rains coming early, I started planting tomatoes in pots. Not sure what 4 of them are because they were just labeled, “tomato” and at 50c each, I decided I would try these mystery tomatoes and see what happened.  I also have a yellow cherry tomato in a pot.

I’ve planted the usual things in the garden, but used my compost this year.  When I planted the tomato plants in the pots (above foto), countless tomato plant volunteers came up out of the compost I added to the top layer.

Being one who can’t just yank a volunteer, I transplanted nearly everything and either gave them away, or planted them in my garden.  Not sure what they will turn out to be, but I have 22 of them in my own garden.  Then there’s the 5 yellow tomato plants, 1 Hawaiian Tomato plant (heat tolerant) and 2 Black Prince (Russian tomato from Siberia-may not do well as the climate in Arkansas is different than in Siberia), 2 Black Cherry and 2 Purple Cherokee.

Well, as of 5-17, this is what’s going on with the Mystery 50c tomatoes.  Producing pretty bunches of tomatoes.

I have lost all my Lemon cucumbers and am about to lose the ones I bought even.  I have more seedlings growing.  Can’t have a garden without Lemon Cucumbers.

I have a Butternut squash growing in corner of the garden in an old tire.  We’ll see what happens.  In the first row of the garden I have tall Purple Zinnias growing and Dwarf Zinnias (3-4 inch) growing in between them.

What’s new this year is adding beds of flowers and flowers in pots to attract bees.  I have planted beds of Nasturtiums, with Sunflowers, a mixture of Tall Zinnias, Lilliput Zinnias, Bachelors Buttons, Cleome, and….something, and a bed with 1 volunteer Pepper Plant planted with White Nasturtiums and Red Celosia. I added pots of Marigolds near the bean beds in hopes of warding off bugs. I have also planted a pot of Bee Balm.

What’s REALLY new this year is spray painting old tires and using them as planters. I have used a terra cotta spray paint with a light dusting of metallic bronze. 

  The beans are also sprouting up. My personal favorite is the Chinese Red Noodle Beans.   The grow to be about 3 feet long.  The green beans and yellow beans are sprouting, also.

What’s really fun is that I have volunteer cucumbers and volunteer squash coming up in the compost I used to transplant the volunteer tomatoes into the garden. What gets transplanted out of there, the Squash or the Tomato?