My First Garden Ever

Last year I did not use soil inoculant for my beans, now I did!. Of all the vegetable seeds in my hands, there are not more varieties than bush beans; I'm in the search of my favorite fresh beans!. The last summer I sowed "stringless green pod" (heirloom), but I planted at the very hot days of summer and the beans were almost skeletons(very creamy ones, but skeletons!, I did not get neither half a pound from a ton of plants!). Later when fall arrived I sowed another variety: "bush blue lake"  and I got several more bean pods from this one; but in both instances I never used soil inoculant and anyway, blue lake gave me more harvest, but at the same time I could blame the weather for the failure of the stringless beans, it may be something I could not know for at least one more year; so let's wait to see how things develop and get the final grip on the bush bean mystery, until then we keep whirling on the twilight zone.

They say cucumbers once the heat is already there, the seeds germinate fast and the plants grow faster. It must be!, because the seeds already exploted with our high 70's F degrees and I sowed my seeds around 5 days ago. Cu cu cu cucumber army. I bought herbs around a week ago, but at the same time I grabbed a little strawberry plant and now there are 3 flowers in the plant. Anyway my book says strawberry is the first fruit of the summer. Very, very strawberry bloom. Mint is a very invasive herb and you bet it is, since I got the plant 5 days ago and placed it in a pot directly in the sun; the runners are already out of the 6 inches pot, the herb grows quickly, that's why people recommend to grow it in pots (so did I!). Many seeds are already sowed in plain vermiculite, hopefully the next days I'll start to see them showing up(sweet peppers, habanero and cayenne pepper). A new batch of tomato seeds are growing as well in case something wrong happens to the actua...

There are years here when temperatures some days in this month are cold, others not, but overall from now to the begining of april is way less severe than last month, altough we still have the chance of going lower with temperatures. I found some information about cold tolerance( 1 , 2 , 3 ) in some vegetables and decided to sow some seeds today, anyway if any night from now to early april turns very cold, I could cover my little plants and protect them that way. The weather had been great for 5 days or more and it seems we will keep that way one more week.

Now is the time when my garden will no longer be only a square ft garden anymore. I knew before that after a year with my square ft garden, soon I had to introduce pots and more work on the garden. Surrounding the inside of the patio will be japanese boxwood all the way. In one 90 degree angle my 2 square ft boxes will be placed where the sun hit the hardest and no shadow or moisture can be seen or felt. I got all my herbs now, at least the ones I really wanted since the begining, but still french tarragon is not available, let's wait some few more weeks to see if one hits the market. In the back(strawberry "quinault"), from left to right(greek oregano), (common sage), (german thyme), (sweet mint). I got stevia growing from seed and a rosemary plant too.