Ambitions and Abundance

In addition to this blog, I keep an "old fashioned" garden journal - one I write in just about every weekend.  I usually start writing in January - listing out the new seeds or plants I want to try - and wrap it up in October with the "most successful" list for that garden season.

This year my January wish-list was huge and I quickly realized that I would need way more land than what our small, urban backyard could supply.  I needed to scale back the list and get realistic as to what I could grow successfully (like 14 types of tomatoes that resulted in more than 50 tomato starts!).

We have four 8' x 4' raised beds and one 16' x 3 bed; a couple of smaller herb/flower beds and a perennial flower bed (which keeps getting smaller and smaller as the number of raised beds grow).  I got 18 tomato plants in the ground last weekend -- all those that I can accommodate - and that spurred me to take inventory of the edibles that are currently "in the ground."

Tomatoes (14 types), potatoes (3 types), grapes (2 types), arugula, lettuce (3 types), radishes (3 types), basil (4 types), sage, thyme, cilantro, chives, oregano, rosemary, garlic, fennel, purslane, spinach (already harvested), cress, chard, beets (2 types), carrots (4 types), onions (3 types), shallots, peas, peppers (2 types) and strawberries. 

Early Radishes



Still to plant:  bush beans (4 types), cucumbers (2 types) and squash (2 types). 
I was amazed at the list.  I am amazed at my ambition and the pending abundance. It's a good thing I cut down my wish-list in January.  Maybe the 2nd St. Chicken Ranch needs to start its own CSA!