All I have so far is lettuce, a few strawberries and very few peas.

Love your list dawn it gives an idea of where I want to be in 2 to 3 weeks

My lettuce has seen its last days. I'll pick mustard greens and spinach tomorrow. Potatoes doing great. Tomatoes only about 2 feet high, but buried at least a foot deep, and I still have a number of plants to install tomorrow However, I prepared a new 40'x40' garden for all the milkweed and assorted other butterfly attractants she has and that will get a lot of attention over the weekend. Had to start all over on the squash, melons and cucumbers (plants raised in the greenhouse must have been too large to effectively transplant). I'm late, but corn goes in the ground this weekend as well.

My sugar snaps look great, but I think I had too much nitrogen in the bed because they're pea-less.

Hazel, Those are some of my favorite spring things to eat! I did forget to even mention strawberries. Our plants have produced steadily since March and still are producing some, but our biggest harvest was early and may be behind us.

Kim, As early as you planted, I'd expect you're right behind me. Let's hope the right amounts of rain fall and that hail doesn't.

Cochise, Oh, your butterflies are going to love the new butterfly bed! We grow a tall form of verbena called Verbena bonariensis (and nicknamed verbena-on-a-stick) which bears small purple flowers at the top of tall stems. It is an absolute butterfly magnet and I have it scattered around the veggie garden. Our fields in our neighborhood are full of milkweed, which already is in bloom, so I don't grow milkweed within the garden any more, though there's some in shrub beds up near the house. I grow everything else under the sun for them though, and in my garden the butterflies that are nectaring love the verbena bonariensis and zinnias above all other flowering plants. Well, the mimosa tree and Pink Lemonade honeysuckle, both planted for the hummingbirds and butterflies, also draw a lot of butterflies too.

Maybe your sugar snap peas are just taking their time to produce. Mine just sat there for ages and then all of a sudden went crazy blooming and producing. I would have liked to leave them in the ground a little longer, but we're getting hot down here and that tends to lead to powdery mildew on the snap peas, so instead of waiting for it to hit, I just took them out and replaced them. I don't really run my garden on a firm schedule, but as soon as something starts looking kinda sickly or dropping in productivity, it is on its way out. I've always got something waiting in the wings in order to keep the garden at a constant level of high productivity. It keeps me busy.

If y'all ever see me utter the words "I'm bored", then you'll know something horrific has occurred in the garden because at this time of the year, I'm never bored.

Dawn

Dawn, what brand and size paper cups do you use to start your seeds for transplanting in the garden? I think I remember reading you plant the plant in the cup, is that correct?

I have snow peas, kale and chard. I've been sick, so they are still out there. Onions are bulbing. Garlic looks good. I have some "baby" spinach I need to harvest. (Would make a good salad for our Mother's Day dinner tomorrow. I am behind already. Tomato transplants are getting too big for their cups. I have flowers in cups for beds that aren't ready and herbs with no homes yet. Planned to have pole beans in 2 weeks ago. Hasn't happened, bed needs work and it's been too wet. (I should throw a tarp over it before the next rain!) Asparagas looks good (not eating that yet), bunching onions and perennial onions doing ok (who's going to weed them?) Not harvesting, but I have parsnips, salsify and parsley root gowing. Potatoes are growing. Not as tall as I think they should be. The over wintered cool stuff like collards, broccoli and chard have all bolted. The bees love those yellow flowers. We let the chicks out in a cage for a couple of hours today. Freaked out the beagle. When she quit barking she laid next to the cage and stared at them.

Tree limbs, compost piles, compost material and OH green onions. My onions planted in that sandy horse manure are looking pretty swell.

We've been cool and too wet for a long time now. Today is the first hot day I've experienced.

I've been seeding away, today, and hardening off maters and peppers. We'll see how they do. I think they'll be fine. The more tender varieties will get partial sun shade. This did well last year.

I have green tomatoes all over my three plants and the pepper plant is starting to grow. I know that looks ridiculous next to what you guys do but my sister is the veggie gardener. I supply the meat!!

Oh yeah I almost forgot, my miniture grape vine (Pixie) has tiny green grape all over it!!!! I am still hopeful it will produce.

Not eating much at all. Onions are sizing up nice. Cukes and melons are just emerging from seed. Sowed beans the other day. Garden tomatoes we getting attacked by some little black bugs. No idea what they are. I think I got rid of them. Sugar snap look good and just strarted flowering. I got them in kind of late.

English Butter Crunch lettuce, spinach, onions and turnips. Beets.

Potatoes look good and starting to flower. Doing our last hilling tomorrow.

Bush beans up about 4 inches and just got mulched with straw. Been eating Austrian Winter Pea leaves all winter. Now nibbling on Snow Pea leaves too.

Carrots are pretty happy but they seem slow this year.

Johnny, you just eat those leaves right off the vine or cook? I plowed them under this year.

cochiseinokc,

I graze on them when I'm in the garden and put them in salads too. Fresh greens all winter.

I just got back from Brunch on Noble. We had quiche, salad and apple sauce. Vision Farms gardens provided the lettuce, spinach and onions. One of our volunteers donated the eggs.

It was as good a breakfast as any human ever ate and it was free.

I donated a gallon of canned apple pie filling for future use.

Johnny

I'm harvesting strawberries, and lettuce. Lots of delicious strawberries. The broccoli has been harvested but I wish I planted more..I've eaten it all :). I was a bit over zealous with the onion purchase and used up 4 of the 9 4X4 boxes..I love onions. I purchased them from Dixondale this year after reading your comments about the quality etc. I followed the planting and growing advice on the insert and I am excited about the results! I've only had two bolt this year! My potatoes are growing well also. Can't wait to eat those!

Still getting asparagus. Onion tops have fallen over but are still pretty green. Potatoes have dripped their flowers and are starting to die back. Cherry tomatoes are covered in little green babies. Cucumbers are starting to climb the trellis. Most of the peppers have set fruit but some plants are yellow and sad looking.

Onions as needed. Lettuce, baby greens otherwise known as thinnings, broccoli side shoots, rapini, cilantro fennel, and more but I can't think right now.

Asparagus, onions (as needed - a few broken necks in yesterday's weather), strawberries, peas, various herbs.

I'm harvesting lots of strawberries, sugar snap peas, and lettuce. I didn't plant very much cool season veggies mostly peas, lettuce, potatoes, and garlic. This is only my second year growing garlic so I was wondering how everyone uses garlic scapes. Do you just use it like you would garlic cloves? I also just found my first tomato to turn color from my early planted tomatoes. I can't wait for that first BLT!

Cynthia

We brought in the first tomato yesterday!

We continue to harvest lots of greens, strawberries, and tons of bush green beans. They probably are at their spring peak right now since I planted them so early. Pickling cucumbers are ready to be picked and pickled.

Cynthia, You can use garlic scapes in any recipe where you'd use garlic in cooking, but it has a fresher, less intense flavor.

Here's some suggestions about how to use scapes:

Garlic Scapes And How To Use Them

Amy, Congrats! I know y'all are going to enjoy that first tomato so much.

Dawn

Still waiting patiently for my first garden fresh tomato!!!

Well, I'm harvesting onions. More than half are bolting. At least many of them were able to bulb up a little.

We have been snacking on sugar snap peas, strawberries, rat tail radish seed pods, and nasturtium flowers. Still waiting on tomatoes as our first plants froze when we were gone over spring break. There are a few blueberries, boysenberries, and service berries that have started changing color and should be ripe this weekend.

I do not think we will get any raspberries again this year, and only a few blackberries from the plants that were bought from nurseries. However, the native blackberries I rescued and planted last year seem to have a decent amount of fruit.

Bon, Did you buy the bunches of onions that you planted locally? Were they Dixondale?

I'm wondering if we can decipher why so many are bolting, and I do hate to hear that they are bolting. The weather has been so weird this year. I don't know what you've had there, but we were very hot in Jan-Mar, and then Apr turned back really cool, so it has seemed like a backwards year in some ways, and then we got so much rain in April that my onions seem to have fungal issues on the leaves. I'm just hoping they stay healthy enough long enough to bulb up and cure properly. Last year they were too, too wet for too long (36" of rain in May-June combined) and most rotted, so I'm really hoping for a good onion year this year.

stockergal, I'm sure that first tomato is coming soon. Until I began consciously working hard to get early tomatoes to ripen in April, I used to be perfectly delighted to have the first ripe tomato by Memorial Day. Nowadays, I've become spoiled and life is just miserable if we aren't harvesting and eating tomatoes in April. Silly, huh?

mars in tulsa, I hate hearing that your tomato plants froze while you were away. I know there were a few late cold nights down here in March and April when mine would have frozen if I hadn't been home to cover them up with frost blankets. Our native blackberries are producing a pretty good amount of fruit this year too. For years I've tried to keep the native blackberries from invading the west end of the fenced garden, and this year I just decided to leave them alone and let them be. Hopefully they'll produce enough fruit to make it worth keeping them. We have other places on our property with native blackberries so I never specifically wanted them in the fenced garden, but they seem to insist upon being there.

We've hit the 90s several times lately, so I'm feeling like the lettuce is in danger of bolting. I hope I'm wrong, but know from experience that temperatures in the 90s usually end my lettuce season, and do so quite abruptly some years.

In really good news, most of the rain the last couple of days has missed us, and that is good news because a lot of it was accompanied by hail. We're wet enough even without the rain and any day that hail misses our garden is a good day. For the second night in a row, the rain was an overnight thing here, with the weather radio going off to wake us up to tell us that folks in the adjacent county were getting severe weather, but there was no severe here, and we mostly got just thunder and lightning here and maybe 3/100s of an inch of rain in the rain gauge.

Dawn

I had quote a few bolt and they weren't the ones I thought would. I separated the huge ones and none of them bolted. It's the red ones I got in the sampler. I just have to figure out which one. When I find my chart.

I don't mind the bolting onions. Otherwise I probably would not pick them to eat early. I planned a lot of extras for early eating but unless it's bolting I just can't do it.

I used to be that way, but have found that since I plant so many, I need to harvest and use some of them all along because otherwise we end up with tons more than we ever can use at harvest time. In our best onion year ever, we had all we could eat fresh for 8-10 months in storage plus I chopped and froze enough for cooking to last us 3 years. One entire deep freeze was filled with nothing but onions for the longest time. Eating them all along throughout spring just reduces our overall harvest by a few dozen, but it does help. Having to peel, chop and freeze hundreds of onions is guaranteed to make you cry. (I wear eye safety goggles while processing tons of onions and that does keep the tears to a minimim, but without those goggles, my eyes would be toast.)

Can you can onions? I suppose they would desintegrate in the pressure canner, huh. I still have onions in the freezer from last year, but that is because they're buried where I can't find them. Every now and then we rearrange and I find them and put a few in the fridge freezer, but when those are gone the whole cycle must begin again.

You could can some soup. http://www.simplycanning.com/canning-soup.html

Most of my soups have onions in them.

I hear pickled onions are awesome. Don't know how to link recipe

You can pickle pearl onions:

Pickled Pearl Onions

You also can make a pickled pepper-onion relish:

Pickled Pepper-Onion Relish

When I spend a long, miserable day of chopping/freezing onions in the summer, the payoff is that for months and months, I can grab a bag of pre-chopped onions from the freezer to use in cooking, thereby not having to chop any onions at all for months. We use tons of onions in cooking, whether we're using fresh ones in season, or frozen or dried ones in winter or spring when fresh onions aren't large enough to harvest yet.

I freeze the chopped onions in one-half cup and one cup quantities in smaller zip locks, and I put the smaller zip locks in 1 or 2-gallon zip-lock freezer bags to keep them neatly organized in the deep freeze that is in the house. In the big chest-style freezer in the garage, it has built-in sliding blue baskets (two layers of them) and I store a different item in each basket, so one is full of carrots, another of broccoli, another of onions, etc. That makes it easy to find what we want without having to search through a random bunch of stuff.

We also use tons and tons of fresh onions in summer when doing the canning as many of the things I can (including Annie's Salsa, pasta sauce, some pickle recipes and even Habanero Gold Jelly) have onions in them, so I have to try to guess in advance how many onions to store fresh for fresh eating and canning and how many to go ahead and either freeze, can or dehydrate to use for other things.

Everything I preserve, by the way, is preserved in multiple ways....canning, freezing, pickling, dehydrating, etc. I have about 40 canning/preserving recipe books, so if there is a way to preserve something, I've got it in one of my books. I run out of onions before I run out of ways to preserve them. I always try, with everything I preserve, to put up a two-year supply. That gives us a cushion to fall back on in the event that the following year has a crop failure.

Well dawn. I went to the garden with the full intention of ripping a half grown onion before it's prime to go in cassava flour tacos. I didn't have to. Found another red bolting onion.

It seems like many of my onions are getting g new leaves since the hail. They sure are pretty anyways

Umm...a slug harvested my carrot plants.

What a bummer! I managed to get the carrots to sprout in the smart pot. They were doing quite nicely. I was so excited. Went out one morning and there wasn't a single green thing left in the pot...just some slime marks. :(

Argh. Well my puppy was pulling up my carrots every time I turned my back so she has been banned from the garden. I barely have enough for me and little man let alone market.

I'm sorry to hear about the carrots.

For Slugs, Slug-Go or Slug-Go Plus (or any similar generic product containing the active ingredient Iron Phosphate) is your friend. I'd never use the chemical slug and snail baits as they contain a dangerous chemical (Metaldahyde) that can be quite deadly to pets, but the organic snail and slug baits that contain iron phosphate work really well. In my garden Slug-Go Plus (Iron Phosphate + Spinosad in a bait form that must be eaten) gets rid of snails (I don't have slugs), pill bugs, sow bugs, earwigs and cutworms.

It is hard to find Slug-Go Plus in stores, even if I find regular Slug-Go there, so I just order it online from A. M. Leonard, which has a great price and ships quickly. Before they developed Slug Go Plus, I just used the regular Slug Go and it worked pretty well on the pill bugs and sow bugs, which normally are decomposers that eat waste material like mulch, but which also love tomatoes, marigolds and melons and become huge pests of them in wet years. It is just that Slug Go Plus is even more effective.

Our soil was so bad that we didn't even have snails for the first decade and we still don't have slugs, but snails are plentiful now that the red clay has been replaced by a beautiful loamy brown soil full of compost and humus. Thanks to the use of Slug-Go Plus once a month in Spring, the snails just disappear from the garden and I don't miss them at all.

Slug Go Plus

I need to stock up on all the products y'all recommend.

The Smart Pot was on the front porch (so I could give it special attention and remember to keep the soil moist because I was determined to grow carrots this year) and that's the only place I've seen slugs. Haven't seen them in the garden.

Luckily, carrots are still growing in a couple of other places in the garden.

Harvested the rest of the mustard greens tops yesterday. Barbara tried a different recipe tonite (Paula Deen's) - the smoked chicken wings did magic. Planted a row of sweet potatoes yesterday and, finally, the last of the tomato plants. The Eastern Phoebes are not liking us to come out to the farm while they're trying to keep the first batch of chicks fed.

Harvested my first tomatoes today!!! Yea yea!!! Ok now the reality, three SunGold grape tomatoes. They were still delicious!!! I still have several on my Cherokee Purple but very green. Waiting patiently.