Liftoff for the Veggie Beds!

The veggie beds are complete, but we've run out of room for the few things we have left to plant!! DH took a break from farming and fled town to visit his people in Tennessee. That's left me with the added responsibility of tending the crops. Since he's been gone, I've harvested fresh lettuce leaves for a salad and a nice, ripe, juicy strawberry that I didn't have to wash the chemicals off before plopping into my mouth. I've decided we're going to have oodles of strawberry plants next year! Once DH returns (with his mom in tow) he plans on expanding one of the small beds he built and/or just making a garden plot in the ground. I told him if he contained it with a 2x6 that would be fine.


Our overflow last-minute bed. This one has beans and peas in it. There were potato starts in the little black pots on top, but they got toasted in yesterday's 80 degree temps. (I told DH that for our region you start taters on Valentine's Day, but he didn't listen!)


The picture above shows bed #1. In it, we have red & yellow bell peppers (with tee-tiny little buds on them today), a strawberry plant, okra (Crimson Spineless), onions (1015Y & Yellow Granex), a cluster of garlic chives, and 2 very young jalapeno plants. We don't eat jalapenos on a regular basis, so I'm not real sure what we're going to do with our harvest of those.


Tee-tiny jalapeno seedling.


Bed #2 is half tomatoes and half various other veggies. We have planted some okra, squash, radishes, and watermelon in the other half of the bed. The radishes are a quick crop. They sprouted in about 3 days, with the help of the rain I'm sure, and will be ready for harvest in about 20-30 days. Talk about almost immediate gratification! I have some bright pink petunias and marigolds to add to it, too. Supposedly, the radishes, petunias, and the marigolds will deter the squash bugs from attacking the squash. We'll see if it works.


Radish "Cherry Belle" seedlings just sprouted. I will need to thin them in a few days.


Veggie bed #3 was planted with pole beans (Kentucky Wonder), bush (or snap) beans (Blue Lake), and peas (Alaska). We also put in 2 cucumber plants. Once the beans and peas sprout, I'm going to pull some out and plant the cantaloupe I have.

Here's what bed #3 looks like today.



And a better close up pics of the bean sprouts. They're only about 2" tall! LOL



When DH returns from back east (LOL) he'll build the bean trellises and the supports for the tomatoes.