My Favorite Seed Catalogs

It's seed catalog season, so I thought I'd let you know about some of my favorite companies to get seeds and why. Where you get your seeds from does matter. You want to get varieties that are well adapted to your climate, and a seed catalog that's based in a climate similar to yours will have more of those varieties.

When I first started gardening, I was surprised about how many seed companies are in New England or the Pacific Northwest. They advertised varieties that were quick maturing for short growing seasons, tolerant of cold, etc. Not very helpful for me here in Texas. What I need is heat tolerance and drought tolerance. After a while I finally found some catalogs based in the South that had more of what I was looking for.

Here are my favorites:

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

More of my seeds come from here than any other company. They are based in Virginia, so most of their varieties are adapted to the Southeast. That's a little bit wetter than my climate, but many of them still do well, and I hedge my bets by also getting seeds from the next company on my list. Their website also has lots of useful information on it, and I like the cute gnome pictures on the front of their printed catalog.

Besides the usual things like squash, beans, and tomatoes, they have a great selection of heirloom collard varieties, many of which I haven't seen anywhere else. Their potato varieties have also been serving me very well, especially since potatoes are considered to be difficult to grow in Texas.

Overall, this is my go-to seed catalog that I check first if I feel like trying a new variety.

Native Seeds/SEARCH

This my second-biggest source of seeds. They are based in Arizona, which is a drier climate than mine, so combining their varieties with Southern Exposure's varieties works out great. This is actually a nonprofit organization whose main mission is to preserve crop varieties that have been grown by Native Americans in the Southwest, so I'm happy to fork over money to them to help support their mission. You can get varieties here you can't find anywhere else, plus some more common varieties that do well in hot, dry conditions.

This is where I bought 10 bulbs of I'itois onions that have continued to thrive and multiply in my garden ever since. My favorite okra, Beck's Gardenville, also came from here (and it's a local San Antonio variety). They also have a good variety of melons, but of course their biggest selection is of the three sisters: beans, corn, and squash.

There's also this really neat ADAPTS tool on their website where you can type in your address, and it will find varieties of plants that came from climates similar to yours. I've used this to help me decide which varieties to try next.


Those two seed catalogs above are where I get the vast majority of my seeds from, but here are some honorable mentions that I shop at occasionally, or get some specialty things from.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

This company is famous for their "vegetable porn" catalog and huge selection. Yet I've found that over the years I get fewer and fewer seeds from them. Most of the varieties I did get from Baker Creek that did well for me are also carried by Southern Exposure. I've also gotten a lot of varieties from Baker Creek that did not do well. I think it's because they don't concentrate on one specific region, so I got sucked in by the beautiful pictures and bought varieties that were not adapted to my climate.

Baker Creek's strategy seems to be to try to accumulate as many varieties as possible from all over the world. That means you can get some really interesting stuff that's not found anywhere else, but you also have to be careful to pay attention to where the variety is from. Here in Texas, varieties from the Mediterranean, or the Middle East, or India will probably be OK. But not things from Northern Europe or Japan, no matter how pretty they look.

So basically, I don't actually buy a lot of things from Baker Creek, but it's still fun to browse their catalog and order a thing or two just to experiment with something unusual. They also have huge seed packets with generous amounts of seeds in them, which may be advantageous with certain crops.

Filaree Garlic Farm

This is where I go for garlic. They have the best selection I've found, including the very hard to find Creole varieties. The bulbs they send are always in very good shape, and their website has tons of information about growing garlic. They specify which of their varieties do well in warm climates, and which need cold climates, and also which ones harvest earlier or later, and which ones keep longer.

Sand Hill Preservation Center

This is where to go for sweet potatoes, though Duck Creek Farms is also good. Sand Hill has the largest variety of sweet potatoes anywhere, many varieties you can't find anywhere else. My only problem with them is sometimes they arrive a little late since they are in Iowa, and I am in Texas, so I can plant much earlier here. If you are in a hurry, try Duck Creek Farms instead, since they are in Oklahoma and ship earlier in the year.

I've never ordered any seeds from Sand Hill yet, but they do have some interesting things listed that I might like to try some day. They do have the problem of being based in Iowa, so I'd have to be careful not to order something that's not suitable for my climate.

Seed Savers Exchange

Another one in Iowa, but this gets an honorable mention because it's such an important organization. This is where the whole "heirloom vegetable" trend probably got started, and they also got me into heirloom vegetables. I used to order more stuff from them before I discovered my two favorites listed there at the top. Their retail catalog is OK. It has a lot of the more famous heirlooms, but many that either are also found in lots of other catalogs (like Southern Exposure), or wouldn't do well in my climate anyway (sorry Pink Brandywine tomato).

If you are into seed saving though, you need to get on the Exchange. I started listing some of my seeds last year. It took a while for them to finally get into the 21st century and make an online Exchange (before that it was just in print), but now that they do have it up and running, it is very easy to list your seeds. Online seed swapping is lots of fun, you get to share the excess seeds that you have saved, and you might find something really interesting listed by another member. Seed catalogs are great, but you never know when they are going to run out of or discontinue a favorite variety, so it's always good to have a network of home seed savers as a backup.


So there are my favorite places to get seeds (and other planting materials) for my garden. If you also live in the South, consider giving them a try if you haven't already. Even if you don't live in the South, maybe I've given you some ideas on what to look for when searching for your own favorite seed company.

Happy seed ordering!

Garlic and Onion Harvest 2015

The heavy rain we had this spring and early summer wasn't appreciated by all of my Alliums. Some of them did all right, but others had problems with rot. That's why I'm posting about them a bit late this year because some of them had some problems during curing.

All of my garlic and onions were planted on September 21, the Autumn Equinox, last year. I planted three varieties of perennial onions: French Red Shallots, Yellow Potato Onions, and I'itois Onions, five varieties of garlic: Red Toch, Lorz Italian, Inchelium Red, Nootka Rose, and S&H Silverskin, and two varieties of leeks: Elephant Garlic and multiplier leeks.

The Yellow Potato Onions, Inchelium Red Garlic, and Nootka Rose garlic were all new varieties I got from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.

French Red Shallots

Harvested June 11

I got these French Red Shallots back in 2013, I think, and this the first year I got enough to eat as well as plant (and even give some away to family members). The first year I planted them, a lot of them rotted, but they must have adapted or something because now they are doing great.

They're just like little red onions, with a sweet mild flavor. They're small, about the size of golf balls, but I'm very happy with them, especially when I see the price of shallots at the grocery store.

Yellow Potato Onions

Harvested July 2

The shallots' cousins, the Yellow Potato Onions, didn't do nearly as well. Long after all the other Alliums were harvested and cured, the YPO's and Nootka Rose garlic still looked like they weren't ready. I finally gave up and harvested them anyway, and I found out that a lot of the Yellow Potato Onions had rotted. They are supposed to be easier to grow than shallots, so I emailed Southern Exposure Seed Exchange to ask them what they thought happened. They thought it was because of the wet weather, and said onions especially don't like that.

It's like we either have to little rain or too much! The onions in the picture are the ones that weren't rotted, so I'm going to try planting them again and seeing what happens.

I also grew I'itois onions again, but don't have a picture for them. These are the ones I got back in 2009 from Native Seeds/SEARCH. They did great, as usual.

Elephant Garlic

Harvested May 11

Even though the Elephant Garlic was one of the first Alliums I harvested, apparently I was still too late. As you can see from the picture, all but two of the bulbs fell apart into individual cloves as they cured. Next year I need to remember that Elephant garlic is ready very early, and I'll try digging them up as soon as they send up scapes. This year I cut the scapes and then left them in the ground a while longer, and I guess that was a bad move.

As usual, I got lots and lots of bulbils, as you can see in the picture, but so far I haven't had much luck with growing those. You're supposed to be able to plant them and they grow into larger solid bulbs, that you then plant again to grow into full sized bulbs with cloves. When I've planted them before they didn't come up at all. If I have room I'll try again this year.

The other type of leek I grew again were the multiplier leeks I got from my SCA a few years ago. As usual, they're doing great. They're almost doing too well and are becoming almost like weeds.

Inchelium Red

Harvested May 12

This was my best garlic this year. It's an artichoke variety that I'm trying out for the first time, and I'm happy. It's very similar in appearance to its fellow artichoke, Lorz Italian. I haven't done a taste comparison yet. I got several bulbs of a good size. Don't have much else to say except this one is a keeper.

Lorz Italian

Harvested May 27

I'm still happy with Lorz too. It didn't do quite as well as Inchelium Red this year, but I still got some good sized bulbs from it. It's also a keeper.

Not pictured is Red Toch, which I harvested on May 12. I only got a few undersized bulbs of that one. It's also an artichoke, but Lorz Italian and Inchelium Red are both doing so much better, I've decided to discontinue this variety.

Nootka Rose

Harvested July 2

This is the garlic that gave me the most problems. It's a silverskin that I tried out new this year, to see if it was better than S&H Silverskin. I finally gave up and harvested it in July along with the Yellow Potato onions even though it wasn't ready, and some of these turned out to be rotten too. I'm torn about whether to replant this one or not. There were a couple of bulbs that looked like they might have produced cloves, and the biggest bulbs of this one were bigger than what I got from S&H Silverskin, but it took so long before they were ready to harvest. I like to rotate sweet potatoes after my garlic, because usually my garlic is out by May or June, just in time to plant sweet potatoes, but this year I had to make my sweet potatoes wait for Nootka Rose.

S&H Silverskin

Harvested May 12

I've planted this other silverskin before, but it's never done very well. The bulbs are always very small. I wonder if maybe silverskins just aren't a good type of garlic for me. They're supposed to be the longest keeping garlics, which sounds good, but that doesn't help much when the bulbs are so tiny they're hardly worth peeling.

Summary:
Keepers - Lorz Italian garlic, Inchelium Red garlic, Elephant garlic, multiplier leek, I'itois onion, and French Red shallot
On Notice - S&H Silverskin and Nootka Rose garlic, Yellow Potato Onions - These will all get another chance, but if they don't do better next year, I'll probably discontinue them.
Discontinuing - Red Toch, due to being consistently outperformed by the other artichoke garlic varieties I have in my collection

Even with the failures, I still have plenty of Lorz Italian, Inchelium Red, and Elephant garlic to eat, plus a lot of French Red shallots.

Garlic Harvest 2014

The garlic has been harvested, cured, cleaned, and is ready to review. This was the best garlic harvest since 2010. All this garlic except the Elephant garlic was bought from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. The Elephant garlic is descended from the original Elephant garlic I got back in 2009 from Seed Savers Exchange. All the garlic was planted on October 5, 2013 in a raised bed in the front garden and mulched with grass clippings.

Elephant Garlic
Harvested: 5/22/2014

I harvested my elephant garlic too late. It's tricky to tell when to harvest garlic. Too early, and the bulbs haven't divided into cloves yet. Too late, and the cloves fall apart once the bulbs dry out. As you can see from this picture, a lot of my elephant garlic fell apart. It's not a huge deal, but they don't last as long this way.

I don't think elephant garlic is as mild as some people make it out to be, but it's true that it doesn't give me the garlic breath that true garlic does.

Lorz Italian
Harvested: 5/22/2014

This was the best variety of garlic I grew this year. It had the biggest bulbs of any of the true garlics I grew (that is, aside from the elephant garlic). Lorz Italian is an artichoke type of softneck garlic, and those seem to be the best garlics for my region (though I haven't given Asiatcs, Turbans, or Creoles a good try yet, since they're a lot harder to find). I haven't tasted this garlic yet, but the various catalogs describe it as strongly flavored. I'm just impressed by how vigorous the plants were and the nice hefty bulbs I ended up harvesting. Definitely growing again!

Red Toch
Harvested: 5/12/2014

This is another artichoke variety. I first planted this variety in 2010 (though it was listed under the name Tochliavri), and it did OK but not great. I gave it another chance this year, and again, OK but not great. The bulbs are usable, but much smaller on average (maybe around half the size) of Lorz Italian. Gourmet Garlic Gardens describes it as having a mild flavor, but I haven't done any side-by-side taste comparisons of my garlics (at least not yet). Will grow again, but if it doesn't start to adapt and improve with some bigger bulbs next year, I may discontinue it and concentrate on some other artichoke varieties.

S&H Silverskin

Harvested: 5/11/2014

This is the first silverskin I've ever grown. Silverskins are another sub-type of softneck garlic, but they're supposed to store much longer than artichokes. They're also supposed to be the last to mature, but I harvested these first, and they were ready. The bulbs turned out to be small like Red Toch. I'll have to see if it really does end up storing longer than the other varieties. Growing different varieties of garlic is a good idea so you can have different harvest and storage times. I wanted to add silverskins to my repertoire specifically for their storage abilities. I'll grow S&H again, but will try some more silverskin varieties in the future to see if any do better than this one.


In summary, Elephant garlic needs to be harvested in early May, and Lorz Italian is a keeper. Red Toch might not be worth it. S&H Silverskin might be worth growing, but other silverskins might be better.

I will grow all these varieties again next time, but have ordered Nootka Rose (a silverskin) and Inchelium Red (an artichoke) from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange for this fall. Not sure yet if I want to order more new varieties besides those.

All in all, this was a good harvest. Even though a lot of the bulbs were small, they're still usable, and I shouldn't have to buy any garlic at the grocery store again for a long time.

Fava Bean Pasta

Here's one of the things I did with some of the harvest of nice green spring vegetables I got in April and May.

I didn't grow any hardneck garlics this time, but I did grow Elephant garlic, which makes some nice fat scapes.

Here is the Swiss chard before it started bolting. I like this "perpetual spinach" type variety with it's small, tender leaves.

But the star of this dish was the fava beans. I've never even eaten fava beans before, but they turned out to be really easy to grow over the winter, and they're really tasty. They are a little bit of a pain to prepare in the kitchen, though. First you have to get them out of their pods, then blanch them in boiling water for 2 minutes.

Next you need to peel them. The seed coats of fava beans are really tough and inedible, so you have to take each bean individually and pop them out of their skins. At least the beans are pretty big, about the size of a large lima bean, so you don't have to peel too many to get enough for a meal. In the picture you can see the peels on the left and the peeled beans on the right.

Then I sliced up the elephant garlic scapes into small pieces.

Sautéed the scapes in a pan with some prosciutto and olive oil. I wanted to use pancetta, but couldn't find any, so I used prosciutto instead, torn up into little pieces.

Meanwhile, I cooked some pasta.

The cooked pasta, peeled fava beans, and chard were added to the pan once the prosciutto was starting to get a little crispy. That was stirred around until the chard wilted.

To finish off the dish, I added some cracked black pepper, a little of the reserved pasta cooking water, some shredded parmesan cheese, and some heavy cream to make a nice sauce. A splash of white wine would have been nice too, but I was out. It was still really good without it.

So this dish used three ingredients from my garden. It can be tweaked too. Some fresh green peas would be good instead of or in addition to the fava beans. I would think any kind of green could work in place of the chard. Garlic cloves could be used instead of garlic scapes, but garlic scapes have such a nice mild flavor.

Next year I'm growing a lot more fava beans!

Roasted Tomatillo Sauce

I ended up getting about 3 lbs. of tomatillos from my 3 surviving plants. That's actually not much. Tomatillos are supposed to be very prolific. I blame the deer and chickens for damaging the plants so they didn't yield as well.

Tomatillos keep well in their husks in the vegetable drawer in the fridge. I was able to stash them in there until I had enough saved up for a batch of roasted tomatillo sauce. I got the recipe off the internet, but soon found out this isn't really something that needs a recipe. Everything can be done to taste.

Peel the husks off like 2 or 3 lbs. of tomatillos and rinse them. Lay them out on a baking sheet with some serranos and/or jalapenos (cut the stems off) and peel whole garlic cloves. As you can see, the peppers I used had already turned red, which was not intentional, but I didn't get to them while they were still green.

Put under the broiler until the veggies are getting brown in spots and soften. The tomatillos will sort of get squishy and collapse and the juice will run out. Yum.

Let it cool, and then scrape everything in the blender, making sure to get all the juice in. Add cilantro, salt, and lime juice to taste. Blend until smooth.

I put mine in plastic containers and froze it. You can also water-bath can this, but in that case you'd need to be much more careful with the ratios and use an exact recipe. It's especially important to put enough lime juice in to make it acidic enough to be safe.

I didn't put much lime juice in so I can slather it over enchiladas, but more lime would probably be better if you wanted it as a dip. When I tasted it, it also turned out hotter than I intended. I made the mistake of not de-seeding the peppers, and peppers you grow yourself tend to get hotter when the weather is hotter and the plants are under stress. But otherwise it was really tasty.

Speaking of chickens, one day the neighbor's chickens jumped the back fence (they usually stay in the front), and dug through my herb garden. Then two of them forgot how to get back out and just kept pacing back and forth by the fence like they wanted to go home but forgot they can jump over. Stupid chickens! We had to open the gate and herd them out.

Greening Moon - belated full moon update

I'm back! Last week we went on vacation to the Big Bend area, and before that I was really busy with final exams and getting final grades in, so May's full moon post is about two weeks late.

May is supposed to be our wettest month, and we did get around 3 inches of rain, which isn't actually that much, but better than we have been getting.

Lots of things have been happening in the garden that probably deserve their own post. First the neighbor's chickens were causing a lot of damage digging up things in the front garden, then while we were on vacation the deer found it! I also got my sweet potato plants from Duck Creek Farms and planted them. I've been harvesting a few paste tomatoes, but I think the deer are eating a lot of them too. That makes comparing yields from the different varieties I planted difficult. I might have to leave out that bit of data this time around and just compare things like plant vigor and heat tolerance.

I knew I was risking things by planting my Rattlesnake beans in the front, and sure enough, the deer have been eating the leaves off of them. The funny thing is it looks like my deer are lazy, and are only eating the leaves in the middle of the vine, not bothering to bend down to eat the ones near the ground, or stand up to reach the higher ones.

The chickens dug up a lot of the beans, so in their place I planted the rest of my Waltham Butternut squash seeds. There were from Seed Savers Exchange in 2009, and I guess they were getting old because I was having trouble getting them to germinate. I went ahead and planted all the rest of my seeds in the ground before we left, and when we came back some of them were sprouting.

The deer are also eating the ends of the shoots on the tomatoes and peppers. I guess the new growth is more tender. Some of my peppers are getting fruit anyway, but I'm sure the deer have eaten a lot of the blossoms.

Weirdly, they don't seem to like the eggplants. The remaining eggplants I have that didn't get dug up by the chickens are making fruits now. This variety is Fengyuan Purple, and the eggplants growing on it are really long and skinny! The biggest one I have so far looks like it's over a foot long. Guess I need to make some more Thai Green Curry paste to make these into curry with.

The tomatillos aren't looking so good. I've harvested a lot of them, but now it looks like they're starting to die down. I don't know if it's because they aren't getting enough water or something else. The deer haven't bothered them either, even the ones outside the wire cage my husband made for them.

I should be harvesting lots of tomatoes now, but the deer have been mostly beating me to them. When I got back from vacation there were hardly any ripe ones to be found, except for a few that look like this. This is a nice big Red Brandywine with a big chomp out of it. Another annoying this is it appears deer don't know the difference between a ripe and an unripe tomato. Maybe because they're colorblind? I found lots of green tomatoes, including a really nice Opalka that was the size of a Poblano pepper with bites out of them.

The only thing I have left to plant is my okra. Some of them took a really long time to come up, which isn't that unusual with okra. I got three varieties from Native Seeds/SEARCH, all from Texas: Beck's Gardenville, Eagle Pass, and Hill Country Red. I know I'm a bit late on okra planting, but okra can really take the heat, so I think they'll be OK.

Taking a quick look at the herb garden, the Esperanza is starting to overwhelm things again, like I knew it would. The other plants aren't doing too bad though. Herbs really like being in the ground much more than in pots. Once I planted all my herbs in the ground, ones that had been in pots on my apartment balcony for years, they really took off. In the background here is the Mexican oregano flowering like crazy. To the gnome's right is marjoram, while to his left is thyme. Elsewhere in the herb garden I've got Greek oregano, rosemary, peppermint, orange mint, catmint, catnip, lemon balm, yarrow, skullcap, horehound, parsley, and now a few different kinds of basil.

I'm still waiting on the potatoes to die down. It's taking longer than I thought it would. I also haven't harvested the garlic or shallots yet. The garlic still doesn't look good, but the shallots are still pretty green.

This is Tatume squash, a Mexican heirloom that is in the C. pepo species but is supposed to be more resistant to squash vine borers. I planted five, and it looks like the borers already got one, but the others are doing pretty well, so we'll see.

The Moon and Stars watermelon plants are also doing well. I planted four of them. I also just planted three Melon de Castilla plants, a cantaloupe from Native Seeds/SEARCH. 

The Christmas Lima beans are in the back, so the deer aren't eating them, and they're doing great. They're just starting to get blossoms.

Here are my sweet potatoes I just planted right before we went on vacation. They probably deserve a post of their own. They've just gotten settled after transplanting and are starting to grow.

The fava beans just aren't doing too great though. It started getting hot just as they were making pods, so I think they just didn't have enough time. This fall I'll have to plant them much sooner.

OK, that's my update. By now I should be getting my summer crops in if it wasn't for the darn deer.

The Grackle Moon

Thursday was April's full moon, and I'd say that the warm-season crops are just about all planted. Finally time to relax a little bit after the frantic March and April planting season and watch things grow.

Here is the front garden. The only thing left to do is mulch that last bed, but I'm waiting until the pole beans get a bit bigger and start climbing the poles. Getting the front garden ready took up a lot of my time, so some of the planting was a little late this year.

I put sticks over the ground to keep the neighbor's chickens from digging up the sprouting beans. That seems to be working so far.

Most of the peppers that survived the winter are coming back nicely. I transplanted them to the front garden, but I'm afraid a few of them might not have survived the trip. Or maybe they're just taking their time.

The tomatillos already have lots of fruit on them. The husks grow first, and then the fruit grows into them (right now the fruits are about the size of marbles).  I got the seeds from an online trade, and they were supposed to be purple tomatillos, but they sure don't look like it to me.

In the back, the Tuscan kale is starting to bolt. I think I'll go ahead and let them and save seeds from them. I'm not going to plant anything in that spot anymore. It's too shady. Too close to an oak tree. The Elephant garlic is starting to make scapes, but it looks like the Romanian Red garlic is all dead now.

The potatoes are starting to turn a little yellow, and I can't tell if that means they're starting to finish up and get ready for harvest, or if they haven't been getting enough water.

The arugula seed pods are starting to dry and shatter. I've been going out there and clipping pods off to save seeds, but a lot of seed is ending up on the ground anyway. I guess I'll have lots of arugula volunteers.

I just planted some Calico lima beans around two bean tepees right next to this year's new pepper plants. I put these pepper plants in the back to isolate them from the peppers in the front for seed saving purposes.

I've started harvesting peas, but only enough to eat fresh right off the plant. The peas are turning out to be a disappointment this year. I think it's a combination of planting them late (after we moved here in March), a dry winter, and then the trellis I made for them keeps falling down and damaging the plants. I'll do better next time, when I will plant them in fall (like I usually do) so they can grow through the winter, and I'll be sure to build a much sturdier trellis for them.

The fava beans are starting to make pods. I'm not sure if I'll have enough to eat some, or if I should just let the seeds mature to increase my seed supply and plant more this fall.

The herb garden is doing great. The roses are finally starting to bloom, about a month later than they did last year. I trimmed back the esparanza and now it's coming back.

I planted watermelons, squash, cucumbers, cantelope, and okra seeds in pots to buy me a little more time to decide where I want to plant them, and to let some of my winter crops finish out before I plant them out. Also, some of the seeds were kind of old, so I wanted to make sure they were going to germinate. I also have basil plants in pots I need to plant out soon.

I've been getting lots of compliments from neighbors about my front yard vegetable garden. I'm really glad I did that. I think it might actually be a better spot than the one in the back (less shade, less rocky), and I'm feeling rebellious because a lot of neighborhoods don't allow front yard vegetable gardens at all. It's like I'm stickin' it to the Man!

The Bluebonnet Moon (and Easter)

Oops, I was so busy with Easter preparation that I forgot about the full moon last week! My family has gotten into the pattern of my parents-in-law hosting Christmas, my sister-in-law hosting Thanksgiving, and I host Easter, so I was busy last week getting that ready, in addition to it being Midterm time at work.

Of course, out in the garden, it's a busy time as well. March and April is when Texas switches from Not-Summer to Summer, and Not-Summer crops are being harvested while Summer crops are quickly being planted before it gets too hot.

Again this year there are a few bluebonnets growing in the front yard, and not as many as I'd prefer. I forgot to add more seeds last year, so maybe I can do that this year. Some of them are already getting pods on them, so we're being careful not to mow them down until the seeds are mature.

In the back garden, I'm still waiting for a lot of the cool-weather plants to finish up, though as I showed you in the last post, the beets and carrots are pretty much done. The fava beans are looking lush and have a lot of blooms. We got 0.1 in. of rain on Easter, and hopefully will be getting more this coming week.

The celery (on the right in the picture) is still small, and I think it's going to stay that way. I've been harvesting leaves and stems from it anyway, even though they're not much bigger than parsley. They still add celery flavor to dishes that call for finely chopped celery, even though they would not be suitable for anything that needs nice big crisp stalks. On the left you can see the shallots, which seem to be doing well.

The peas are about waist high now. They have about two months before it gets too hot for them. I hope I can get some peas by then. Nothing like homegrown green peas.

The arugula is covered with seed pods. I'm going to have plenty of arugula seeds to trade and give away.

The garlic and kale are still looking just so-so. I've been able to harvest a little bit of Tuscan kale, but I am really doubting I'll get a good garlic harvest. Next time I really need to plant them in a better spot than up under this tree.

The front garden is just about done! I ended up making four 20' x 4' beds, with 3' paths between. I've decided I like that better than the 5' wide beds and 2' wide paths I did in the back. That turned out be a bit crowded, especially when the plants were full grown. Eventually I'm going to redo the back garden and widen the paths.

The front garden has all my tomatoes, tomatillos, and eggplants in it already. Now I'm working on transplanting the peppers that survived the winter from the back to the front. Here are the Lemon Drops. All of them survived the winter. In the back I'm only going to plant the peppers I'm saving seeds from, to make them easier to isolate from the other peppers.

We've also been planting things in other areas of the yard. Over Easter weekend, my husband worked really hard on our hedge of fruit trees along the front by the street. Now we have (in order from lower left to upper right in the picture) Wonderful Pomegranate, Meyer Lemon, Satsuma Orange, Key Lime, Gold Nugget Loquat, and the fig (unknown variety) that my in-law's gave us. The citruses should start bearing fruit by this winter. I'm not sure how long the other trees will take, but I'm sure it will be worth the wait!

I've also been planting more herbs, including this catnip (left) and catmint (right) in the shady area of the herb garden. First we just put wire cages around them, but some cat figured out how to pull it up and wriggle underneath, managing to eat half the catnip plant. So now we have these rocks around the cages to make that harder. I don't mind giving the cats catnip, once the plants are big enough, but I learned my lesson about leaving catnip unprotected. The cats end up eating it up so quickly it can't grow back and eventually dies. The idea behind the cages is to protect the main part of the plant, while letting the cats eat the parts that eventually grow through the cage. The cats just need to be patient!