The First Salad Thinnings of 2015

I think I didn't do many posts on the vegetable garden last year, and don't know how many I'll get done this year, but I need to at least post on my first salad from the garden!  (I did add some things from the store, though.) The garden is on the north side of our garage, so part of it gets shaded some of the day.

This is looking south from the driveway.

Looking west from the garden entrance, I didn't show the rabbit barricade I have to lift my legs over to get into the garden from.  We need to come up with a better way to keep them out, and get me in.  Plus, they have managed to squeeze in a few times when I didn't get the wire back up high enough.

The strawberries escaped from a tub, and I decided to let them stay.  Our neighbors have a locust tree on the north side of the garden, which sends up more and more little trees I need to cut back from all over the garden.  I suppose that means there are tree roots taking moisture and nutrients away from the garden, and if the strawberries do well, I'll let them roam around some more.

I have lots coming up!  I started planting in January, and can't remember when I planted these, but it was probably March.  There is some asparagus in here that came up from the plants across the garden.  I decided to keep them there and see how they do.  I have random flowers on the side of the garage, goldenrod, brown eyed susans, and sometimes the white blooming obedient plants escape my pulling.

I like to have an assortment of lettuces, spinach, kale, radishes, and such.  I am thinning out the volunteer dill plants that come up so thickly.

This is such a pretty sight to me!

I hope to get lots of soup made with the spinach, kale and carrots this year.

I've mentioned this is the hardneck garlic that my mother-in-law had growing here.  I didn't know how to take care of it, so it got quite thick before I learned that you harvest it when it dies back, and replant it in the fall.  I hope to get the rhubarb harvested this year and used for something.  It is always picking time when I have the most other gardening jobs to get done.

I hope the resident garter snakes are enjoying their digs.  Soon, I will be turning part of the compost over to get it cooking.

Looking back to the east:

I have been pulling hollyhocks out of the garden for a few years, but it looks like I may be letting a clump grow this year.  Peas are one of the favorites of rabbits.

I see they found this row.

 I just have a small patch of asparagus, and we end up buying a lot of it from the farmer's market, but still, I am hoping for each year to have more.  I didn't get it fertilized this year, other than putting compost on it in the fall, but did use something organic last year.  What organic fertilizers have you found to work well with asparagus?

Walking further east:

Are you tired of lettuce close ups?  ;-)

It doesn't look like the rabbits got to these peas.  I planted them so closely because the seeds were a few years old, but it looks like they all came up.  I thinned them once, and put the tops in with some mushrooms, asparagus, and violet leaves and blooms.  I should probably thin them a little more  One of the seed packages said to plant them pretty close together, though.

I may decide to take out this volunteer spiderwort.  I will also take out some of the smaller violet clumps that have popped up.  I'll keep these, though.

I am not sure what the shiny green plant is.  Do you know?  It must have come in one of my mixes.

The lacy plants are annual larkspurs, and the longer leaved ones are bachelor buttons.  They and verbena bonariensis come up in the veggie garden every year, and I need to thin them out.

Today was the first day I made it out to start the thinning.  It's one of my favorite things to do, and one only a gardener would have the patience for.  I pull out clumps or individual plants, pull off the roots, and place them in a bowl.  I was hoping this was going to be enough to share with the neighbor whose yard I am also gardening in, so I did not pick any violets until I went in, and kept them separate.  I wasn't sure if she'd like them. 

I took this photo after the thinning.  There is still plenty to grow and thin again in a couple days.

I ended up not gardening much today, because I made some whole wheat sour dough with 1/3 cup rice flour in each loaf.  I enjoyed my lunch, and only had a bit of the thinnings I didn't use.  I want to pick some from her yard tomorrow if it works out, and will get some to her then.

I have not gotten to those who have visited here for my last couple of posts.  I hope to get those visits returned soon.  Happy gardening, or looking forward to gardening!