Can we have a salad yet?

The romaine loved all this rain- these little guys are going nuts. When I bought the plants and planted them, they were a little weak looking. Now they are crushing it. Check out this homie:

I very much wanted to rotate that picture, but apparently between iphoto and blogger, rotating this picture is impossible. This next picture is from when they were first planted. I'm not sure that these are the same exact plant, but they are all growing at a similar pace.

We did lose one of the romaine plants- no idea what happened. One day it was perky, and the next? Completely flattened and all yellowy. I know some cats wander this garden, so let's just blame them...

Plot 24 at dusk...

I usually go to my plot right after at work. The garden is officially supposed to be off limits a half hour after sunset. Thankfully our days are getting longer, so I always make it there before dark now. 

This is the latest and greatest photo of the plot. I got it at a pretty good angle, but it definitely needed the flash:

We can see (in order from left to right) the black kale, romaine, white onion, pak choi, sugar snap pea, broccoli, and in the top of the photo, artichoke. That bag next to the 'choke is a bag of compost I bought last weekend. When I planted the 3 new rows I put a little compost in the trenches first and also sprinkled some around the already planted dudes. I have tons of compost left but I plan to incorporate it into the rest of the plot so that soil can be nutrient rich by the time I start planting more goodies.

Speaking of the good old artichoke, look how fabulous he looks! (With comparison shot from his first day in the ground.)

Quite the improvement if you ask me...nice and spiky!

Time to plant!

Since planting those salvaged plants I've been going out and watering the plants most every day. I'm pretty busy so I don't really have too much time to get down and dirty during the week, but thankfully since my plantings are a little sparse still, there isn't too much hard labor to do.

After I got back from the holidays, I decided I could get some new plants in the ground. Obviously, it's Winter so there aren't really a ton of exciting crops like Spring and Summer will bring. But, hey- I couldn't wait!

I had done a little hunting at the local places you can buy veggies to plant- Orchard Supply Hardware, Home Improvement Center, and La Sumida Nursery. Don't get me freaking started about Home Depot- no I will NOT buy your crap crops that you ship in from God knows where!

Frankly, as far as winter crops go, Home Improvement Center had the best looking stuff. But I got an OSH gift card, so I decided to check out what they had to offer. It was a little bleak, but I got a six pack of white onion and a six pack of romaine lettuce.

Since it had been a week since I worked through all the soil, a few little weeds had started to sprout here and there. I worked through the whole plot with a hula hoe- the world's greatest gardening tool. It is extremely easy to use and I made sure to leave room between each plant so I can fit the hula hoe in between.

Here are my two finished rows:

Here are some closeups of the onion and the lettuce:

Next post I'll give you an update on the strawbs, 'choke, and parsley!