garden | how does your garden grow

how does your garden grow?... Seeds are germinating left and right around here. Everyday brings the birth of a new vegetable, flower or herb. It's so exciting to see this emergence, it is kinda of like a gardener's new year. Starting off fresh with some great new additions to the veggie patch and some fun and different varieties to explore.

Kicking back happily under the grow lights currently are some trays of onions, shallots, leeks, tomatoes, peppers, petunias, celeriac, and mesclun. This year I'll be growing around ten different varieties of tomatoes. I'll hoard up on my usual Romas because I use them the most for my sauces. But I'm also trying out Juliet again after a few years hiatus and Heinz Paste for the first time. We'll have some Super Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes. I grew Sun Gold for the past two years and loved it, but am trying Super Sweet again for the first time in eight years. I'll also have some patio tomatoes for my deck for the days when I'm feeling too lazy to walk those extra feet out to the garden. And finally I'll be growing a mix pack of Heirloom tomatoes. The mix is made up of Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra, Pink Brandywine, and Black Prince. I grew these last year and they were coming along great until the blight hit, so I can't wait to try them again this year.

I'm also doubling up on my onion crop this year. After years of sad excuses for an onion harvest, last year's yield was incredible. I was a little amazed because I would have thought that the constant rain deluge of the summer of 2009 would have rotted the bulbs rather than help them, but I was wrong. We're still munching on Prisma Red shallots and Borettana cipollinis from last fall. This summer we'll be growing Red Marble and Borrettana cipollinis from seed and well be planting some long day sets from Pinetree Seeds. Sprinkle in some Prisma Red shallots, Lincoln leeks, Early Red Italian garlic and Siberian garlic and we will have ourselves one stinky summer. I can't wait!