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.