The Beginning of Something Wonderful

This week I finally pulled two of the lettuce heads that have been growing all winter.

The timing is perfect because I don't feel like cooking this week. These will be used in salads throughout week.

The four small lettuce heads that I showed you last week have really been enjoying all of the rain we have been getting. They've grown so much.

In other gardening news:

I am trying get some of my rose bush prunings to root.

One of my sweet potatoes has delivered me three slips (with roots); only 12 more to go.

We also got the tomato bed started. Our frost free date is 3/15; but looking at the forecast, we won't get below about 60 all week. So I set them out (they've been hardened for a month now). I am able to protect them if the need arises. The tomato bed has Cherokee Purple and Black Cherry planted along the trellis, celery planted down the center with Basil, more basil at one end, and (on tomorrow) Heinz and Roma. They will be caged to get more vertical growth.

The trellis was made with plastic bamboo stakes and garden netting. I put the stakes every 2' and connected the netting with garden velcro. This setup cost me about $19. The plastic should last over 10 years and the garden netting is reuseable as well. So, I expect to get a lot of years out of this. Plus, I should be able to grow about 4 tomato plants on this one trellis; so that is about $5 per plant - which is  great, as even the small tomato cages cost at least that. We'll see how this set up works and if there are any tweaks needed in the future.

The potatoes have emerged.

Collards are looking good and popping up everywhere.

Even outside of the bed....can you see them.....look behind the garlic...not that far back...just behind the garlic...center of the picture....yep, that's the runaway collard.

We got 2 of the bean trellis' put up. We've got 2 or 4 more to do...depending on how many peas I decide to grow. Each trellis will grow 21 plants spaced 6" apart.

The trellis is made of cedar furring strips and garden netting. The netting is connected to the strips using garden velcro; which is reuseable. So this trellis should last several years. Each trellis cost about $12. Not bad for something that will last a while. I wish I could have thought of a cheaper set up though. Last year, the peas completely took down the 4' bamboo stick teepees I made for them....what was I thinking...4'?

So all in all, I believe that this is The Beginning of Something Wonderful.

Check out more wonderful gardening harvests and adventures over at Daphne's.