So…bush beans for the win? I am also a fan of the bush beans. And peas.
I think I see pepper and tomato labels. You start early! Do you know what family ( annum, chinensis, baccatum, etc) of peppers are you starting?
The peppers are Anaheim and baklouti, and past years have taught me they are very slow growers. With my luck, this year they’ll shoot up and outgrow the pots before it warms up enough to move them outside.
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I’ve started - but haven’t yet finished- any of the big, early jobs for 2024 (garden layout, seed order, master chore plan), but in advance of rain-storm warnings followed by freezing temps, I did get the over-winter spinach picked and cleaned up. This is growing under cloche.
Yay - fresh veg!!!
Tomorrow I’ll get some covers put on the scallion beds, and hope for the best.
Then, it’s back to the planning (and weeding). I’m feeling the holidays are finally behind me, and it’s time to be thinking of spring.
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Fruit first formed later summer 2023, but finally ripened enough to harvest (I think fingers crossed) this month. They smell wonderful. My first fruit off the Meyer lemon tree. 
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Yay! This is when I usually harvest, although I have none this year, and some around here harvest year round.
Saw the sun for the first time in weeks today; temps back to above freezing. Weeded and fertilized the asparagus beds. Seeded (in the greenhouse) the first round of hardy winter greens. Yay, spring!
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Citrus trees in my hood.
Some folks around here seem to take them for granted, but I’m still impressed.
I couldn’t make the multi-picture thing work.
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amazing. i think i would literally poison myself with citrus if i had that much access.
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Those may as well be our trees. We have two navel oranges, a Meyer lemon, and a tangerine. They keep us in fresh fruit for about three months. I don’t eat the tangerines (too tart for me - they make my face scrunch up in a way that pleases Spawn2), but Mrs ricepad eats a couple of them every morning, and we snack on the oranges between meals a lot. The lemons get used fresh off the tree when I make something that calls for them (eg picatta), otherwise they get juiced toward the end of the season and frozen into cubes for use throughout the year.
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What kind of care do they get? I have two Myers, one blood orange that might as well be dead, and one Sumo (but with a different name.)
The Meyers are much smaller than those in my pictures, don’t get much care beyond drip irrigation and fed when I remember. They do “fine”, but not great, and this year there were no fruit or flowers.
The two oranges are on almost flat ground, struggle mightily, and have never born fruit.
They are all grown on clay slopes, some steeper than others.
Care? Care? What’s that? The tangerine, lemon, and one orange are right against the house, so in the winter they enjoy some moderation from the cold (we have yet to have even one night below freezing this year, though), and they get watered when we remember. I think Mrs. ricepad hoses off the other orange a couple of times a year to try and knock off the aphids, but that’s a bit like shoveling sand against the tide. Curiously, the citruses against house don’t suffer from aphid infestations as much. We do have a bag of citrus-specific fertilizer in the garage, but since it has a fairly thick layer of dust on it, I don’t think it’s been applied in quite some time. I think our soil is loamy, but with a thick layer of clay probably 4-5 feet under the loam - we live in an area that was a walnut orchard 100 years ago, so the topsoil is pretty good, but the clay heaves as the moisture levels change throughout the year.
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Raining today, but still the peas must get planted.
Started with a small trough of snowpeas today. I like them fresh in a stirfry. Despite what the package says, I have never found this variety to be “incredibly early”. They come in maybe a week earlier than all our other spring peas.
Will follow up in the next week or two with a much larger planting of shelling peas, the bulk of which will be destined for the freezer.
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Everyone please send thoughts of encouragement to my pepper seeds, which have been in the dirt for a month now without sprouting. C’mon, pepper seeds!
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If the seeds are still viable, they would probably benefit from some bottom heat.
Well done you all!
I couldn’t plant outside this fall, so I’m trying some “root trainers” for my sweet peas and sugar snaps.
These will be some very expensive peas!
Garlic (you guys were supposed to discourage this!)
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And shallots; some rotted and didn’t come up
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They should be viable - some were harvested from last fall’s peppers. And they’re on a windowsill over a radiator, so they should be getting a little heat. Peppers are so slow!
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Okay. In my experience, sometimes if they sit in damp soil for a month they won’t come up. Chinensis are slow, but annum (like Anaheim) shouldn’t be. I think baklouti is annum as well.
ETA yes; baklouti is annum.
Yes! I agree the radiator is a good idea; if it brings the soil temp to 80 f they should pop!
