I can’t believe it’s the middle of May already and I have yet to put one seed in the ground! I had such good intentions, but we’ve been quite swamped with work and visitors and traveling and LIFE! But I still hope that one of these days soon, I will still put some seeds into the ground and create some sort of food in our new raised beds in the courtyard.
So today, I’m going to dream about 10 things I want to grow this year!
- Tomatoes — These are the one thing that always stand out radically from store bought produce. There is nothing like the earthly, sun-filled smell of a tomato fresh off your own vine. We have a new location for our tomatoes that is under the roof of our guest house — so with any luck the dreaded blight will leave our ‘maters alone this year!
- Lettuce — One of the only things I managed to grow last year before our accident, I’ve discovered a wonderful place to grow lettuce under our rose bushes where they don’t get too much sun when the weather turns wildly warm. So I’m looking forward to plenty of homegrown salads again.
- Cucumbers — We managed to grow a few cucumbers in our courtyard a few years ago, up the side of our aquaponics tank. So we’ll try that again too.
- Zucchini — Our stockpile of shredded frozen zucchini for zucchini bread has been seriously depleted over the last year…so I hope to replenish it this year for many more months filled with moist, delicious zucchini bread in our future. 🙂 And of course smell fresh zucchinis for sauteing and grilling!
- Chilies — This one will actually require that we finish our
- Eggplant — Mmmh, eggplant. Whether it’s on a pizza with fresh rosemary. or breaded as parmasan, there is nothing quite like fresh eggplant!
- Carrots — Dainty, fresh carrots are so sweet and delicious. Not to mention healthy!
- Bell peppers — This one is a basic staple in our house; Mackenzie can almost eat her weight in bell peppers on any given day. An stuffed bell peppers are a new favorite around here which I would really love to try with homegrown peppers.
- Decorative corn — Normally I would not devote any efforts to growing things I cannot eat. But I love how decorate mais looks at Thanksgiving. And since it’s nearly impossible to find here (especially at reasonable prices), I’m apparently going to have to grow my own. I even have the seeds already which I picked up at our local feed store.
- Decorative pumpkins & squash — Along the same lines as the corn above, I so love to have these around the house — but they are insanely expensive over here. So I’ve got to find a way to get these sprouted FAST & then keep the darn slugs & snails from devouring the seedlings! Crushed egg shells & cornmeal are high on my list…
Some of the zucchini we harvested in 2008
A great list…I have tomatoes, tomatillos, cilantro, and fennel waiting to be planted.
The zucchini in your photo looks great, but of a large sort. I have found that when it’s harvested sooner & smaller, the taste is better and sweeter. Do what you want though …just my opinion.
That strain in the picture was HUGE. It’s Defender zucchini and we had a couple plants that produced “normal” fruits — but they would double in size every day. So if you didn’t check daily, you’d suddenly have an 8 pound zucchini on the vine. When it’s shredded up for zucchini bread it really doesn’t seem to make a difference if you’re using the huge ones or not — and we certainly didn’t want to just waste them. But when you’re eating them fresh, small is really the only way to go.
Very well rounded list. If I could have a garden here, darn apartment living, I’d try to grow avocados!
Do you have a patio? We grew tomatoes on ours in our first apartment here in Frankfurt. They would have been great if we hadn’t been so close to the chemical factory. 🙂 Not sure you could grow avocados in a pot, though! 😉
The balance of foods you want to grow and how it chains you due to care and tending, harvest schedules,processing etc is always delicate isn’t it? We have a very small property here where we live in northern California, which has controlled us as far as how much space we have to put under cultivation. High Yield and easy processing options have been fruit trees. Dwarf and semi dwarf or espaliers seem to help keep things under control. Neighbors have helped us with excess and vice versa. Berries and herbs have been very successful as well. A front sloping hillside of lavender in our front is my pride and joy. When in bloom pure heaven! Tomatoes are the dream of every gardener in the SF Bay Area.The climate-not enough heat-usually foils true success. But we all keep trying!We all have visions I’m sure of our own Garden of Eden. It’s so easy to over plant. A freezer as we all know helps. For me another help has been a life long obsession with Jams, Jellies, savory, sweet and/or herbal as well as chutneys has resulted in literally hundreds of jars being processed every year. Guess what people get for Christmas? Don’t think “yuck how boring!” It can get quite creative. This year friends and family got either a “cocktail party in a box”-which was a cool wooden box with fig/ginger/orange jam flavored with a homemade rum allspice liquer,hot red pepper jelly, carrot confiture with almonds, myer lemon and cognac, with an assortment of local cheeses and homemade bread-or a Breakfast basket with a cool antique linen liner, homemade breakfast treats and strawberry jam with marsala and black pepper, a thick chunky apricot jam, and an assortment of marmalades. I also include a homemade seasoning salt made with California sea salt, meyer lemon rind and fresh rosemary. Sometimes I’ll line the containers with my dried lavender or just put in a pretty bunch of it. All herbs, fruits, and veggies in these are our own. Preserving reduces the volume of what you harvest and gets alot of work for the holidays out of your hair early. Anyway, it’s worked for me. Yet I still have dreams of growing enough to really live off of. We’ve got enough land at our old farm in Germany, but not the time to work the property to that extent. Ah the dilema continues. Happy Gardening and growing everyone! And here’s to everyone finding the best balance of things for their own gardens,rooftops or patios!
Thanks for the wonderful comment, Sue! We lament about growing tomatoes here as well. Our summers have such unfavorable wet periods that we have never managed to produce a good ration of tomatoes. We’ve now tried the greenhouse and the garden with poor results. Hopefully the covered option will turn out better! 🙂
One question — how do I get on your Christmas basket mailing list? 😉
I highly recommend the Jimmy Nardello sweet italian frying pepper. And of course, tomatoes! Good luck –
Tomatoes and bell peppers are relatively easy to grow. Good luck! =)
mmmmmmm eggplant. I’d love to try growing that but have no idea what it likes/doesn’t like.
Next year, I must remember to put in some zucchini. Your picture of them makes me remember how good they are!
This year in central Ontario Canada we have Roma tomatoes, heirloom yellow tomatoes, brussel sprouts, wax beans, snow peas, habanero and hungarian hot peppers, a south american veg called Jilo and a south american squash, both being tried as a favour to friends. Also have strawberries, a bunch of herbs, mixed salad, spinache, shallots, garlic and “baby” watermellons.
haha only managed to get one strawberry so far. The chipmunks keep beating us to them. Little devils.
If you can grow peppers you should be able to grow eggplant. They like warm climates. Definitely start them indoors about 8 weeks before the frost free date but in a 4 inch pot (or something about that size). They don’t always transplant so well so it’s best to put them in something that they can stay in until they go in the ground.
My only real trouble with eggplants at the moment is getting them to pollinate. Lots of blossoms but no fruit. Happens to us often with the black beauty variety. Apparently I’m going to need to take a q-tip to the plants to get the pollen from the male flower to the female (the female always has a small fruit on the end). This must be done within one day of the female flower blossoming — which i may or may not accomplish! 😉 Strangely enough, we have bees all over our squash vines, but they have no interest in the eggplants at all.
Sounds like you’re going to have a great harvest! Zucchini is a must in our garden! Big fans of zucchini bread — well before the slow carb diet. Will have to figure out how to make it with almond flour or something low carb now…