Spring 2015 Veggie Bed Planting

Two weeks ago, on March 29, after danger of frost had past, I cleared out my winter veggie beds and got my spring veggies in the ground.

BED #1

In the first bed from the left, I cleared out all winter greens except the Swiss chard, which probably has a couple of weeks left before it will have to go as well.

In the rest of the bed, I planted the following seeds:

• Watermelon - Bush Sugar Baby
• Cantaloupe - Hale's Best Jumbo
• Edamame - Butterbean
• Bush Bean - Blue Lake 274
• Cucumber - Salad Slicer
• Cucumber - Homemade Pickles

BED #2

Because I will not have a squash bed this year (I'm trying to rid my soil of squash vine borer pupae), I have a full extra bed for planting other goodies this year.  I'm taking advantage of the space to grow more tomatoes, eggplant and peppers, all which did very well in my garden last year.

In the second bed, I have ten tomatoes planted, along with some basil, marigolds and zinnias.  The tomato varieties include:

• 2 Early Girl
• 1 Cherokee Purple
• 1 Brandywine
• 1 Better Boy
• 1 Beefmaster
• 1 Sweet Million
• 1 Juliet
• 1 Red Grape
• 1 Yellow Pear

BED #3

The third bed has some overflow tomatoes, as well as a bunch of peppers and eggplant, with a few zinnias thrown in the mix.

Veggies in this bed include:

• 2 Celebrity tomatoes
• 1 La Roma II Red tomato
• 1 Tomatillo
• 3 Black Beauty eggplants
• 6 Ichaban eggplants
• 1 Cayenne pepper
• 1 Serrano pepper
• 2 Mosquetero Pablano peppers
• 1 Jalapeno pepper
• 1 Mariachi pepper
• 1 Carmen Red Sweet pepper
• 2 Gypsy peppers
• 1 Bell Boy sweet pepper
• 1 Big Bertha sweet pepper
• 1 Orange Blaze pepper
• 1 Flavoburst yellow sweet pepper

And here is a view from the other side:

BED #4

The last bed doesn't get more than an hour or two of sunlight in the morning and an hour or two before the sun sets, so I keep greens in this bed that prefer a bit of shade during the hot summer days.

In this bed so far I have:

• Lettuce (various)
• Spinach 
• Swiss Chard - Fordhook
• Leeks

While I do not have a bed of squash, I couldn't go cold-turkey and not have any squash.  So, this year I'm going to plant just a couple plants in containers and cover them with row cover fabric or tulle to keep the squash vine borers out.  I will need to do some hand pollinating, but it is worth it to have my squash plants last the summer.  Squash in containers so far include:

• Summer Squash - Cube of Butter
• Summer Squash - Tatuma

I can't wait for all the delicious garden-fresh food that awaits!