A Rose by Any Other Name Would Still Smell as Sweet

End of May, and the first roses of the year from Laura's Rose Garden are in full bloom.

Peace (Pink & Yellow)

Abraham Lincoln (Red) Rose

Pope John Paul II (White) Rose

In honor of those at Columbine, here's a look at our Colorado State flower in it's various different types from the front flower beds.

Yellow Columbine StarBurst

The "Standard" Light Blue Columbine 

Start the Clock !!! The Plants are in the Ground !!!

There are two days I look forward to every year; first is Fantasy Football Draft day, the second is garden planting day.  With that, we're underway ... The Kersey Gardens 2012 is planted and now the rest is up to Mother Nature

"The Kersey Gardens 2012"

No chance of there not being enough fertilizer this year for stuff to not grow well.  Dug up all the beds, amended them with Eko-Compost (good stuff), sprinkled in granular Miracle Grow and then lightly mixed it in - no deeper than about 4-6".  After dropping the plants into the soil, we hand watered all the plants with a souped up mix of water and liquid Miracle Gro.

"Corn & Bean Bed"

Peaches & Cream (my wife's favorite). Potato bags up along the fence - Russet, Red and White Potatos growing within. The pole bean tower is in the upper left hand corner, and we'll have a row of bush beans along each edge of bed. This photo also shows Kerry's salad bed on the left side and the Van Leuvenator Banana Pepper bed on the right. 

the "Van Leuvenator" Sweet &  Hot Banana Pepper Plants

the Van Leuvenator Banana Pepper bed holds a trio of hot banana pepper plants in the top tier, and three sweet banana pepper plants in the lower tier.

Frog Garden Beds 1, 2 and 3 

Frog Garden Bed #1 - Pepper Bed

Frog Garden Bed #2 - Vining Tomatoes

 

Frog Garden Bed #3 - Beef Steak Tomatoes

The #1 Frog Garden Bed (closest in the top photo) contains 8 total pepper plants, the middle four of which are multi-colored sweet belle peppers.  The two on the left of the photo are "Jose Jalepeno on Steeek" plants (you have to be a fan of Jeff Dunham to understand).  On the very right side of the picture, you can see the Fogelberg Ghost Pepper Plant - the hottest known pepper in the world

The two further raised beds house the tomato plants.  Frog Garden Bed #2 houses the vining tomatos, including Roma tomatoes in the middle - my personal favorite in the middle.  In the far bed (#3) are the Beef Steak and Mountain Fresh tomatoes. 

Along each side of the tomato beds, I planted Nanches carrots from seed tape (Perry & Morse).  Last year, Kerry liked these so much she'd go out pluck them straight from the ground, rinse them off with the hose and eat them raw in the garden.

Raised Bed #4 and Colburn's Murder's Row Container Garden

The left row in the raised bed houses the Giant (sweet) Belle Peppers - Marconis and Big Berthas.  The right side of the photo are additional tomato plants.  Along the outside, in the container garden, we'll find Habanero peppers, Thai Peppers, Cheyenne Peppers and Hot Jalepeno Peppers.

 

We did bring back the everbearing strawberries this year, but instead of filling the entire low raised bed (#4) like we used to have, I've filled three containers with Ft. Laramie everbearing strawberries.  We'll see how those do, and if have any chance of getting some before Kerry gets at them.

So with that ... and the help of an automated watering system ... we leave the growing in the hands of lots of sun, good fertilizer and Mother Nature. At least for the start of the year, I've set the plants to get watered every other day. When the temperature cranks up into the 90s, I might have to change to daily.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year !!!

No, it's not Christmas (yet).  It's the first trip to the greenhouse to find this year's plants - a little bit like the mother ship calling you home.  My wife just dreads this day, shaking her head as I fill up the garden wagon with plant after plant.

People ask me all the time - are you nuts?  why in the world do you grow all that? there's only three of you, and you don't even like peppers? Well first of all, yes, I'm probably nuts but the simple answer - it's fun, it's relaxing and a sense of satisfaction. Nothing real fancy. However, the folks down at work do tend to really appreciate the Farmer's Market that usually happens in early September.

This year's first stop was to Miller's Greenhouse in Greeley.  Every year I seem to find really good stuff there, well tended, strong looking plants.  And this year was no different, $100 bucks later we left with three flats of flowers, peppers and tomatoes.  We'll always find our way to the Lowe's and Home Depot, but more times that not you can find unique and different stuff when you go to the greenhouses - this year's surprise - a Ghost Pepper, commonly known as the hottest pepper in the world.

So I spent most of Thursday prepping the raised beds.  I'm using Eko's Compost again this year to amend the soil in all the beds.  It's good stuff - not too hot, but very fertile.  Usually comes in bads about $5 each at Lowes/Home Depot.  If you ever really need HOT compost, better for churning into the ground rather than containers, the Home Depot generic brand is awesome.  Great stuff, very hot !!

Turned over all the soil (pretty deep in all the beds), spread about two bags across the top, and then only worked it in gently (not wanting the good nutrients to get buried deep where the plants can't really get at 'em).  Before planting, I then added Miracle Gro's Vegetable and Tomato fertilizer - the granular kind - across the top.

And with that the beds are ready; 18 raised bed pepper spots, 10 tomato spots, cucumbers on a climbing trellis and 4 rows of carrots, 3 hanging baskets for ever bearing strawberries, 5 upside down planters for tomatoes and peppers, and 10 containers ... all ready to house this year's hopeful bumper crop.