Not much has been said about the garden yet this year other than way back in February when all the seeds were ordered. A lot has happened since than…

Back in March, the tomatoes, eggplant, and green peppers were started in the kitchen window. We hadn’t started seeds indoors before, so we went with the “more is better” approach – and planted more than enough seeds to compensate for the ones that don’t germinate and the ones that die before they make it to the garden. The result? Almost everything came up and now there are roughly 20 pepper plants, a dozen eggplants, and 18 tomato plants that have been planted in the garden.

Lulu helping plant tomatoes.

Some of the head lettuce and broccoli were also started inside around the first of April. They were moved outside on April 28th… the day before a hail storm. What were the odds? Luckily, we only lost one lettuce plant and one broccoli plant. The rest were pretty beat up, but came back nicely.

Young head lettuce

A recent broccoli transplant.

Most of the early seeds that were planted haven’t done much yet, though the peas are starting to take off.

Pea plants just getting started.

The raspberry and strawberry patches were established last year shortly before everything dried up so there was a little concern over how things would come back this year. It doesn’t seem to be much of an issue. All of the raspberries canes are showing life and there’s hundreds of new shoots.

Raspberries

The strawberries also came back strong and have started to bloom.

The strawberry patch

You can tell it’s early in the gardening season by the fact that there’s all kinds of enthusiastic help. Peanut is all eyes and simply loves to watch, though occasionally it sounds like she’s barking out orders. The rest of the kiddos are more hands on and end up head to toe in dirt and dust by the end of most evenings.

Plenty of help

The other night, Potato Boy and Lulu even had there own “heave-ho” chant going while they were racking together.

Teamwork

We’ll see if everyone is singing the same tune once late July rolls around.