A new year, a new garden

Spring has arrived, and my much neglected blog needs some attention. I am going to try and blog more this year and have some guest bloggers chip in with some thoughts. Here is my garden so far. I am excited about this year's garden. I started everything from heirloom seeds and have some good thought out plans for the entire Spring and Summer. Here is hoping the squirrels will leave me alone and maybe it rains a little. 

First thing you will notice is that I have given up on tomatoes. I am growing a lot of corn in hopes to trade some neighbors and coworkers for tomatoes.

Overall view of the set up this year. I extended some growing room by removing some of the walkways and adding soil. Corn on the left, scallop yellow squash in the middle, peppers, potatoes, chard, sorrell, and onions on the far right, and eggplants will go in the front.

Potatoes have been planted since early February, and are doing well. Looking a little wilty here, because it is so damn hot outside already. No cucumber beetles yet, but I have been seeing them around. Its just a matter of time.

Onions have also been planted since early February.

I've got one unknown bell pepper, 2 King Arthur bell's, and 2 Serranos planted so far. Awaiting some more pepper transplants from my parents.

I am trying to grow some corn in succession so I can have it through the Summer, and then plant okra in its place as it goes. This is a heirloom variety called Inca rainbow sweet, a multi-colored sweet corn.

I added three raised beds in the front yard to offer more space in my limited sun. The two outside beds are planted with Gentleman's Sweet Corn, a heirloom variety that looks like normal sweet corn. The middle bed will be planted with Black Popcorn, another heirloom corn, in a few weeks. I have to stagger the plantings of the popcorn with the sweet corn so they don't cross pollinate and make the sweet corn starchy. The spouse loves popcorn, so hopefully I can come through for her needs.

The front trellis is planted with red Asian long beans, and they have just started to pop up. I grew the green variety last year and it was a lot of fun. Imaging foot long bean pods! The back trellis is planted with Christmas Lima beans. A heirloom variety that I read about in "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver (strongly recommended).

I am excited about my nopals putting on lots of new pads. I planted this spineless prickly pear for food a couple years ago, and I think it is finally big enough to harvest a pad here and there.

In the Texas native garden, the bluebonnets are blooming nicely. Not much of a display this year in the TX native garden since we have not had much rain at all, and I refuse to water this garden. That's the  point of planting natives! But none-the-less, with no water I still have flowers, with more to come.

And the mealy blue sage is blooming nicely. This one will last all summer!