Grow Garden Grow!!

I have wanted a garden ever since we got married. I tried to plant a few things at our apartment but I don't think the area got enough sun. It wasn't successful. But this year I have high hopes for a great garden. My retired neighbor is wonderful and give me all kinds of tips and let's me use whatever tools he may have. We borrowed his tiller and Dan tilled the garden area for me. Can I just say that I love freshly tilled soil. Sounds weird but the soil just seemed so much better. 

I got my peas planted a while ago and they are growing wonderfully. I am looking into some sort of trellis for them to grow up on. Easier picking and I'm pretty sure they say you get more peas that way. Not sure if that will happen this year but I would like it to. 

 A couple of weeks ago my mom brought down about 25 raspberry plants from her garden. They are in full sun all morning but  come 1 o'clock that stinkin' forest over the fence blocks them all afternoon and evening. I hope they get enough sun b/c who doesn't love fresh raspberries and raspberry jam. I actually just went to water them and some aren't looking so hot. Some of them already have blossoms on them. I am surprised by that b/c I have heard that when you transplant raspberries it can take years to actually produce any fruit. Time will tell on these. I am going to list all the vegetables I got b/c I want to keep a record so next year I will know what worked, what didn't, what we want more of etc. This is for journaling purposes so you can just go ahead and skip over this. I have extremely high hopes for making salsa this year which is why I planted so many tomato plants. 

5 rows of peas

1 zucchini

1 spaghetti squash

2 Anaheim peppers

1 red pepper

5 Roma tomato plants-already struggling, yikes!

4 Jet Star tomato plants

1 Big Beef Tomato- BLT's here we come. :-)

1 Sugar lump- sweet candy tomatoes, how I love you.

1 Sweet Million cherry tomato

1 Walla Walla onion

1 Sweet slice cucumber

1 Burpless cucumber. 

Both of my cucumber plants are already being eaten by something. Grrr!!! Oh and did I just step on one of my already struggling roma tomato plants while I was out watering? I sure did. Seriously Em, wake up!!!

The Roma Tomatoes were already struggling when I planted them for some reason. I may have left them in the containers too long, I have no idea. I think they may beginning to turn around though. I hope. I still have some room so I think I'm going to go get some more but that's what we have for now. Wish me luck, I'm pretty sure I'm going to need it. 

I made some Strawberry freezer jam the other day and I really hope that it tastes good b/c I ended up making way more then I was planning on. I did it the really easy, don't even cook kind so we will have to see but it was pretty easy and I was proud of myself for trying it. I look forward to much learning and experimenting with having a garden and preserving the things that we are hopefully able to grow.