The Growing Challenge Week..uh...??

Im here! Im here!
Melinda must think I fell off the planet but no, I am just insanely busy!
(for info on The Growing Challenge click on the button of the same name to the right under the topics)
Its hard having both my job and my hobby be spring intensive, and the kids school too!
Sooo, we have been working in the yard every spare moment. Not all has been on edibles, the front yard is turning into a awesome cottage garden.
What have we got going?
1.Finished all the raised beds, hauled 10 yards of dirt into new ones and topped off old ones.
2.Finished planting the blueberry patch, 12 plants in all.
3.Have heirloom squash, melon and cucumber seeds starting.
4.Planted tomatoes, they froze and today I planted 17 more.
5.In our center salad box we have swiss chard, shallots, green onions, tons of lettuce (from discards), three types and colors of carrots, radish, thymes and (dont laugh) peanuts!
6.Planted Italian Long Green, Sweet Cherry and Mini Chocolate peppers today.
7.Got the bean supports half done and put in the red noodle asparagus bean seed today.
8.Planted a columnar apple in one corner of one bed, am starting garlic chives from seed, going to put under apple...read they were good companions. Also planted a Jonagold along the vegetable fence and am training it into a espalier.
9. Along the fence we planted 7 various 'rescued' grapes from work and 2 pomegranates.


10.Bought two figs: Panache (Striped Tiger) and Brown Turkey, not yet planted.
11. Bought a Lane Late Navel Orange, not yet planted. Am researching the rest of the citrus I want to get this spring.

12.Started 2 flats of alpine strawberries form seed, one red and one yellow.

A few pictures:

Dont look at the weeds! This is the mini apple-pear orchard...ha ha. I am laying rocks around these beds so you have to envision rock lined pathways here, and filled with beautiful plants of all types where the weeds are, ok?

Above is the bed with the red noodle beans along back, columnar apple in corner, and the purple tomatoes: Black Krim, Black from Tula, Cherokee Purple and Prudens Purple. And the peppers too.

The enter "salad" bed. Note: teh tomato on the bottom left is Giuseppe's Bigga Boy. I planted all my tomatoes (and I KNEW better)on March 31st. That night I heard the vineyard fans kick on. We had a week of frost....that Giuseppe's was UNTOUCHED. The rest turned black and wilted down. And they were all hardened off the same.

The box above will have the Blue Lake pole beans along the back. I carefully charted out my tomatoes in a book this year...no lost tags. In tried to group them so we have the group of German Johnson, Caspian Pink x2 and Moskovich and the group of HillBilly, Arkansas Traveler and Box Car Willy. And I threw the french girl Dona in there with them for fun. We are getting straw this week to line all the walkways and mulch the beds.

This bed has Aunt Rubys German Green x2, Green Grape (my favorite) and Persimmon. In the back of the bed those metal stakes are going to be used for the cucumbers. I want to try and trellis them this year. You can see the new beds in the back of the picture. The squash and melons go in there.


And lastly...we did not get the blackberries removed yet BUT my husband did bushwhack a path to the back fence. Not sure why we need to walk to the back fence but we an now, if we so choose. I would love to clear this out, but I think it will be a bit yet.
And so thats it, thats what we have been doing in the fruit/veggie department!
I hope all of the other "growers" are doing well!