New Shoots

It's fun to put little vegetable plants in the earth and watch them thrive and grow, while looking forward to the bounty we hope to harvest in months to come.  In fact, we're already enjoying some tiny, red, deliciously sweet fruits from our strawberry plants.

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My favorite part of the whole garden experience, though, is that moment when the seeds we plant erupt from the ground as tiny green shoots.  You almost wait with bated breath, wondering if those little seeds will do their job and make an appearance above ground.  This year's garden has not disappointed so far!

Here are the new vegetable plants that we started from seed (or seed potatoes):

May 18: The radishes were first to burst forth, just 4 days after the seeds were sown.

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May 30: Now look at the radishes today, just 12 days later!

I read somewhere that radishes are the workhorses of the garden.

May 30: The cauliflower is doing fine.

May 30: The carrots are coming in like crazy!

May 30: The potato plants almost look like they belong in a flower garden.

May 30: We have 4 rows of peas!  Ed looks forward to these the most.

May 30: Here's a row of spinach.  It's funny, but after 2 years of this

I can pretty much tell the different types of plants apart now.

May 30: We only have a couple of zucchini plants so far.

Of course, all of these green growing things require a lot of water, but Ed's got it covered with a series of hoses.  It took a lot of time, money, and effort to come up with a plan that would reach all 4 beds with enough water pressure, plus water the bean pole area, plus leave an extra hose free for hand-watering and filling the chickens' water bottle, and so on.

And here we have Grand Central Hose Station.  It looks like a technological octopus!  Ed has it all figured out and he's explained it to me a few times, but I prefer to leave all this watering gadgetry to him!