It's garden time for most of us. What's everyone planting this year and what do you have in so far?

Right now I have potatoes, asparagus, and peas poking out of the ground.
Carrots, beets, broccoli and lettuce are in but not up yet.
Strawberries and blackberries are greening up nicely.
Planted 2 peach trees today.

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And To The Republic For Which It Used To Stand

On Easter, I planted 3 dwarf apple trees: Granny Smith, Macintosh, and Red Delicious. I also planted 5 grape vines: Concord, Muscadine (2), Thompson Seedless, and Red Flame. I have leaf lettuce (Red Sails & Buttercrunch) and spinach (I cheated, & bought these all as plants). My strawberries (Ozark Beauty & Quinalt) have come back, as did some catnip, mint (of course--has anyone EVER been able to deep-six mint??!?), and lemon balm. On Easter, I dug up some carrots I over-wintered, and some turnips. Today, I bought 2 dwarf peach trees, Elberta & Georgia Belle/Beauty, and some more Concord grape vines just arrived via mail today. My raspberries & blackberries are flourishing, as are my roses. The weather here has been HOT, so things are coming up nice and early. Normal temps: mid-50's-60ish this time of the year. It was 89F yesterday!

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WTSHTF: Gather it up, and use it for a GREAT fertilizer for your survival garden!

Can you get your Granny Smith locally or do you need to mail order? I can't find anyone around here that carries them.
That's why I've been so reluctant to plant any.

Yeah we have the same thing. Looks like it's going to be a hot, dry summer here in the Mid-Atlantic.

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And To The Republic For Which It Used To Stand

I also just planted a seedless concord and a Flame seedless. In the same shipment was a miniature peach tree and a miniature nectarine tree (the ones I planted two years ago suffered heavy storm damage from the snowpocalypse), a dwarf Bartlett, some asparagus, and three varieties of raspberry. Everything has broken dormancy nicely. I really like Stark Bros, they ship great products and really stand behind them. I just built a raised-bed strawberry garden (Surecrop) and am slowly putting seedlings out into the garden. Sugar snap peas are about 4" tall as are the tomato seedlings (on my list to get them planted today).

Mostly I'm growing tomatoes (I can't find glass-pack canned tomatoes and BPA-lined cans are not good for the kids so I'm canning my own this summer), korean pumpkins (when they're young they taste like zucchini, mature they taste like squash and NO borer problems), cucumbers, beets, carrots, peppers, pole beans and french beans. Also lots of watermelon and cantaloupe.

Can't wait!

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Waste not, want not, use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without.

Frost here last night. Taters, peas, and beets came through it well.
Round two of potatoes went in Sunday.
Bean trellis's and tomato stakes went up today.

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And To The Republic For Which It Used To Stand

Hi Uncle Joe & Emmysmom,

Sorry for the late reply! Haven't been on much.

I bought my dwarf trees on eBay, about $13 each (about 3-4 ft. tall). They'e budding, and doing well. I can buy them around here, but there's not much of a selection--and they are now depleted at Home Depot, about the only place I could buy fruit trees (Walmart, who always had them, and very nice, big one, for a mere $20, no longer carries them, it seems. Wish I had bought them last year). I kind of like buying them online, because when I hauled home 1 dwarf & 1 semi-dwarf peach tree, they filled my car; I broke a few small branches. I'm too cheap to rent a pickup truck from HD!

Emmysmon: what were the pear trees you bought from Stark like? Do you know how long it will take for them to start bearing fruit? I thought about ordering from them--I can't find dwarf pear trees here (all sold out) nor on ebay (ditto from my apple seller). Thanks!

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WTSHTF: Gather it up, and use it for a GREAT fertilizer for your survival garden!

Do you remember the eBay user that you bought the trees from? If you had good success with them, I'd be interested in purchasing some trees from them as well.

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Please don't take my avatar to seriously. I'm really not a bible thumping armageddon prophet.

Hi NoAcresNoMule, I got the dwarf pear for $16+shipping from Stark. I expect it to start bearing in two years - prior to that I'll have to pinch off any fruit that it produces; I want it to put its efforts into making healthy roots first. The nice thing about Bartlett is that they're self-fertile - a consideration since I don't have very much yard. I planted a Plumcot (cross between plum & apricot, fruits are 33% sugar) but I needed an Asian plum as a pollinator. Then I had to get another Asian plum to pollinate the pollinator. =/ I also bought a Stella black cherry tree (self-pollinating), and a grafted 2-n-1 yellow & red Delicious apple (they'll pollinate each other). As you can tell, I'm a big fan of fruit trees. =) I've order many many trees from Stark, and they always arrive healthy. I've had one where the graft didn't take and I also had one that didn't survive the winter & Stark replaced them both cheerfully. Hope this helps!

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Waste not, want not, use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without.

Friday morning 5-14-10 I put in the first round of tomatoes, beans and cukes from the seed I started inside about a month ago. At 5:30 that afternoon we had 60mph winds, torrential rain and nickel sized hail.

Here are a few photo's sent to a local TV station.

http://cfc.whtm.com/slideshow/slideshow ... &pagenum=2

Beans and cukes were gone, the pea trellis was blown down, tomatoes are twigs and the beets, carrots, broccoli and potatoes are flat on the ground.
We went to an auction Saturday so I spent all day Sunday leveling out the ditches left by the rain, rebuilding the trellis, which somehow didn't destroy the pea plants, and replanting the beans and cukes from seed. The root crops and peas should recover. The tomatoes; we'll see
I figure that little storm set me back about 3 weeks.

Planted about 1/3 of the corn on the 23rd.
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And To The Republic For Which It Used To Stand

That hail was crazy. Loved the pics!

I'm going to be planting our garden this weekend. Purchased some plants already and have some seeds to go in as well. We took one of our trips to PA recently and got some nice tomato, pepper, cuke, squash flats that are well developed. Nice to have a jump start on the garden.

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If it's in your pack, but you don't know how to use it...it's useless. So, always test your skills as a form of preparation...Don't wait until your life depends on it. That's a lesson you don't want to learn the hard way.