Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

The garden is growing great. I've been watering every day and sometimes in the morning and evening. The peppers had a slow start, but they're just now starting to come around. The tomatoes are already setting quite a bit of fruit.

Here's a closeup of the Long Purple Cayenne and NuMex Big Jim.

And here's my favorite Tomato so far, the Pink Accordion.

Lisle French Market Saves the Day

I lost a couple of tomato plants after planting. I think the stalks must have gotten damaged during the transplant. Fortunately, the Lisle French Market (their name for a Farmer's Market) had a vendor selling tomato and pepper plants. I bought Tomato plants called Mortgage Lifter, Early Brandywine, and Thai Plum. I also bought an Italian sweet (bell) pepper plant and Basil and Chives.

Planting Day

All the hard work is about to pay off. It's time to plant the garden outside.

Last spring frost in the Lisle, IL area is May 15th, but I waited until the weekend to plant.

Success! Peppers are on the left and tomatoes on the right.

Transplant Day

The seedlings have finally out grown their tiny cells. Actually, the tomatoes probably should've been transplanted a week or two ago.

Here's how the tomatoes look at 5 weeks:

I transplanted the tomato seedlings into larger cell packs with organic potting mix followed by an application of Miracle-Gro Quick Start to help the roots develop.

Crowd Control

Time to thin the little beasties. You can see they are a little crowded right now:

I snipped the weakest sprout in each cell at the base with scissors.

They're Alive 2 (The Sequel)

Twelve days and the tomatoes have already sprouted! Amazing.

Red Globes of Goodness

Tomato seeds are planted:

Pink Accordion
Patano Romanesco
Illini Star
Lumpy Red
Cherokee Purple
Copia

I'm looking forward to the striped Copia and Pink Accordion especially.

They're Alive

The first seedlings have appeared!


They are both hot Thai peppers. No sign of anything else yet.

Planning on planting the tomato seeds in a couple of days.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers

The peppers are planted.

I'm using two seed flats with inserts which total 72 cells per flat or 144 total cells for the pepper seedlings. I planted the following cultivars:

Thai Yellow Chili
Thai Burapa
Long Purple Cayenne
Roberto's Cuban Seasoning
Numex Big Jim
Chili De Comidia
Corno Di Toro Rosso

I decided to plant 18 cells (2 pods) of the the first five varieties and 27 cells (3 pods) of the last two. The Chili De Comidia seed packet has a label that says "This item is overpacked due to low germination.", so I decided to plant a few extra cells just in case. I also planted an extra pod of the Corno Di Toro Rosso which is a red sweet pepper since we tend to use a lot more sweet peppers then hot peppers during the summer.

Variety is the spice of life

I decided at the outset that I would primarily attempt to grow heirloom vegetables for something new and unique. Sandra and I love tomatoes and peppers, but I also wanted to grow melons and a few other things.

While doing some research, I came across Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company which offers a wide variety of heirloom vegetable seeds. I ordered 20 packets of seeds and received them about a week later. Two varieties were out of stock already. To their credit, Baker Creek not only refunded my money for the two out of stock items, but they gave me two free packets also.

I'll discuss the varieties across a couple of different posts in the future.

Location, Location, Location

We moved into the new house last September, so I was able to take a look back then at the sun angles and the available garden space. The two large trees in the back yard provide plenty of nice shade, but too much for a garden. Luckily, the side of the garage faces directly South and it entirely tree free.

The seller must have recently landscaped the entire ground with red dyed wood chips to improve the curb appeal of the house before putting it on the market. I still need to dig all of this up, but here's what I'm starting with.

I'm thinking of putting two trellises leaned up against the garage and training the melon vines to grow up. That would leave more room for the tomatoes and peppers.

Starting the project

This is the first year Sandra and I will have our own single family house. Living in the townhouse meant no room for a real garden, so we had to settle for houseplants. Now that we've got our new house in Lisle, I'm ready to start a real vegetable garden for the first time.

This blog is my attempt to document the trials and tribulations of a first time home gardener.