Today I pulled out a number of radishes (they keep coming every day!), a little bit of spinach, and plenty of italian parsley.  I’ll write more about it later, but the parsley over-wintered and dropped seeds all over the place so I’m finding parsley in the oddest locations.  I’m going to trim down and eat most of the errant plants and keep the ones that are growing in a relatively good location.

Related articles:

1. First Harvest of the Season
2. On the Farm, June 19, 2009
3. A Growing Farm, May 27, 2009

Carrots

Carrots among the Garlic

The carrots were planted on a windy day.  Good news, they’ve seeded and are growing nicely.  Bad news, they aren’t all in the places that they were planted.  This happens and I don’t get too worried about it.  The picture above shows a carrot growing among the garlic plants.  It will be interesting growing two in-the-ground plants right next to eachother.  So far — so good.

Tomatoes

Tomato Plant, May 27, 2009

The tomato plants are looking good.  For the first time, I planted the plants in the order in which they’ll bloom (early season, mid-season, and late season).  Not suprisingly, the plants are growing at the same rate.  Above is an early season tomato plant which is growing considerably faster than the other tomato plants.  It’s hard to tell from the angle, but the plant is about a foot tall (the other plants are still in the 8 to 10 inch range).

Peppers

Peppers, May 27, 2009

The peppers are strong, but they haven’t been growing high.  Peppers thrive in heat (which is the reason no many people grow hot peppers in the Midwest — the hotter the pepper, the more heat and sun you need).  We’ve been averaging upper 60s for the past few weeks and the pepper plants need 80s.  I’m hoping the weather picks up a bit and they’ll start to take off.

Herbs

Parsley and Cilantro, May 27, 2009

Cilantro and parsley are tough herbs to start.  I’ve had many failed attempts at getting both to sprout and I’m happy to say there were no problems this year.  Above you’ll see a few solidly growing cilantro and italian parsley plants.  If you’ve never grown the two, it’s actually a little hard to tell them apart.  Usually the smell test works — cilantro has a strong distinct smell.  Please disregard my lack of weeding.  Honestly, I’ve made mistakes and pulled herbs instead of weeds so I like to give it just a little time to establish themselves to figure out whether it is a weed or not.

Peas

Peas, May 27, 2009

The spinach is also going strong.  I have three different stages of spinach growing right now.  The picture above is from the first batch.  I can start cutting each of these plants for some baby spinach, but I think I’m going to let it grow just one more week.  There is another set of plants about 2 weeks behind and then a third set which just popped out of the ground.

A good start and plenty more pictures to take and a couple of more seeds to get in the ground in the next week.

Related articles:

1. Peas, Spinach, Radishes and More…Growing
2. On the Farm, June 19, 2009
3. Friday Growing

In years past, I’d have planted them indoors a few weeks ago and transplanted into the ground in a few weeks.  I’m trying something new this year.  Instead of transplanting, I’m trying to direct seed in the ground.  I’ve planted 12 seeds and I’m guessing only 6 will actually sprout.  Once they do sprout, I hope the plants will be more robust than my transplants.

Nothing crazy with parsley varieties.  Here is the variety that I’m growing:

Giant of Italy (Petroselinum crispum)

Huge leaves with great flavor. Dark green, flat leaves with strong stems.

Related articles:

1. In the Ground: Cilantro
2. In the Ground: Swiss Chard
3. A Growing Farm, May 27, 2009