Saturday, April 6, 2013

The Return of Saturday Farmers Market



Saturday Farmers Market is a weekly event originally created by the beautiful and nature loving, Heather at Capricious Reader. It's a weekly event that celebrates gardening, be it your own garden or gardens around you; local food, be that at your local farmers market or at a restaurant or festival that celebrates eating locally; a recipe that you've created using fresh ingredients or a whole cookbook; and veggies, flowers, herbs and farm goods galore. Anyone and everyone can participate. It was originally started within the book blogging community but I'd love to see it expand beyond as well. You don't have to have a garden or grow veggies to participate, just post about how veggies, flowers, local farms, etc. have impacted your life this week. You'd be surprised! It may be too cold to grow things and it may be too hot to grow things, but you may just want to post about the plans you have for when the ground thaws. Or maybe even share with us how your community aims to keep things more sustainable or even about the local trails and nature offerings around you! This will also connect really well with Mrs. Beth Fish's Weekend Cooking ;) Thanks Heather for letting me take over the reigns for this wonderful idea that spawned from your creative brain :) Feel free to leave the link to your post in the Mr. Linky below, spread the word, and come back to read everyone else's posts as well! 

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So here's what's been going on in my garden lately! I'm going to spend this first week just giving you an all around overview of my little patio garden then in the future weeks I'll give progress updates, what's growing, what new plants are coming in, what pests I'm fighting and how I'm fighting them :p what experiments I'm doing, and what's growing inside the apartment too!
 First up is my little herb garden which seems to be doing fantastic! Couldn't be happier with it. In the box planter on the right, I have parsley, chives and oregano. Down the middle is basil, mint and rosemary. And that little pot on the left of the picture is greek basil which I LOVE. I also have some thyme growing in that planter in the back! Matt actually made a mask for his face with some crushed mint  the other day and he said it felt wonderful! May have to try that myself :) I can't WAIT to have  a real garden but I'm quickly learning that patio gardening can be just as rewarding!
This is one of my little bulb planters that have been kind of disappointing. The foliage coming up is absolutely GORGEOUS but I'm afraid none of the bulbs are going to flower :( The winter just wasn't cold enough. I don't think my mom's tree is going to give her any lemons either because of the awful winter. She had tons of gorgeous blossoms but they all fell off and there are no signs of any lemons at all coming in :(
Here's a kind of overall view of the veggies right now...as of now, I have three tomato plants, three peppers (two bell peppers and a jalapeno) and an eggplant. the two little trees you see in the back are citrus trees! Baby ones. I have a feeling these will be added to as we go :p 



















The tomatoes are already putting out LOTS of flowers and I already can spot at least ONE little tomato :D Hooray!! There will be tomatoes this year!! I always get nervous growing tomatoes in containers...they just don't seem to do as well for me as the do in the ground. But it looks like this may be a decent year!! Lets keep our fingers crossed :p




















And here if you look close enough you'll see little tiny buds! These are two citrus trees that I ordered from Gurneys :) I didn't expect blossoms at all this year on them but I actually have some! The one on the left is a dwarf meyer lemon and the one on the right is a dwarf key lime. I also have a full sized orange tree that has lots of blossoms! It would be so cool to get fruit this year!!! By the way, if you haven't discovered Gurneys yet....I'm obsessed with them....
And I'll leave you this week with my nasturtiums which I'm in love with :) They're the only flowers blooming right now, but they make me smile every day as there are new flowers blooming every day. I planted these last year around this time from seed and they never flowered all year....now all of a sudden they're flowering like crazy and they're just gorgeous :) So how's your garden doing? I'd love to hear all about it!!



11 comments:

Beth F said...

Yay! I'm so glad to see this back. Can't wait for my garden to do something and for our farmer's markets to open again. Now that I have a tumblr account I can easily share my veggie and food photos.

Thanks for the shout out to Weekend Cooking. Let's have some great cross-over links!

DesLily said...

I love all the pictures and you always being so excited to talk about your garden!! I can almost hear the happiness in your writing!! xoxo

Debi said...

Well, I didn't really have anything interesting to say, but I just had to make a post to celebrate because you and Heather are so awesome! :D

I'm truly impressed by how much you have going on on your patio there! Oh my gosh, and your baby tomato! *swoons*

Ali said...

Love this event, I'm so glad it's continuing! I probably won't have any of my own garden news to share for a while, but I'll go ahead and link this week's Saturday Snapshot post since I think it kind of fits the topic.

chrisa511 said...

Beth, Of course!! Can't wait to see your pictures :) I didn't know you had a tumblr account! Am I following it? lol...Sad, but I don't keep up with it all that often :/

Mama, Glad you like the pics :) You'll have lots of them to see for now on!

Debs, Yay :D Can't wait to go see your post!! There's actually lots more on the patio :p I'm waiting for a notice on my door that I have to get rid of it all :p

Ali, Glad you're excited to see it back!! It was my very favorite event and I was honored that Heather let me bring it back :) Glad to see you participating!!

Heather said...

Firstly, I am SO glad you took this one for me Chris. I have missed it so much!

Secondly, I AM SO JEALOUS of your garden!!! I'm just really getting mine going and YOU HAVE TOMATOES?????? So not fair. And also fair.

I guess I'll go out and take some pictures, eh? YAY!

Leslie @ This is the Refrain said...

So excited to see this back this year since I might actually have something to share. We moved all of our seedlings outside today and I'm so excited for plants! Some of them are doing well and others I'm worried won't survive the transition, but we'll see. I just hope it's not too cold for them. I have to admit, I'm just like Heather - jealous because your garden is so far along and mine are all babies in their pots!

Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said...

Well, you saw that we have tomatoes planted and I'm still trying to decide if I want to do one or two more things (if you have EASY suggestions I'm all ears...remember I'll be gigantic this summer!). But now I'm feeling rather behind seeing your cute little tomato to be.

Excited this is back! I wasn't into the gardening and farmer's market thing when Heather did this before so I'm excited to be able to have something to contribute now. yay!!

Jeane said...

Ooh, it all looks so lovely! Your garden is a lot further along than mine- my tomato plants are still just past their seedling stage, and my basil hasn't even come up yet. I love seeing all the greenery!

Daphne said...

What fun! Is it bad that I am way more into gardening posts than book posts right now? I love your herb pots -- I have fallen in love with herb gardening. They are all so pretty and fragrant, even if I don't use them all the time. I am hoping this is the year my lemon tree FINALLY gives me a lemon. It's year three! Come on, little tree!

Susan said...

Wow, what an awesome lot of green things you have growing! In pots OUTSIDE! I'm so jealous.....we are supposed to get snow and freezing rain on Friday! No growing things here yet. So your pictures are a feast for my green-starved eyes, Chris. You have such a green thumb! I love nasturtiums too. Thank you for posting these! I'm going to join your blogging about gardens too :-)