Spring Veggies

This photo contains the remnants from my winter vegetable garden. A Georgia collard plant (right of the palm) is still going strong, while the yellow Jelly Bean tomato (left of the palm) has sprung back to life with the warmer days and has been producing yummy little cherry tomatoes for a month now. The collard plant is a cool season vegetable that will soon be finished producing once the days get too warm.

My yard is shaded by oak trees, so I grow most of my veggies in containers. As the trees take on their new springtime canopy of leaves I have to move the containers around in order to catch more sunlight. It becomes like a game of Hide and Seek with the sun.
One of my favorite veggies to grow is salad greens. They are so easy and they keep on producing even after you cut leaves off. Plus it's nice to have fresh salad greens at hand. These two photos contain a couple of bibb lettuce but mostly a mixture of leaf lettuces.

Not pictured are my tomato plants - two in pots and four in the ground. Let's see there's two yellow jelly bean, black cherry, lemon boy, beefsteak, and a volunteer that we're hoping is pink brandywine.
This is the first year I've grown snow peas and it has been extremely fun. The vine is so delicate and I have it climbing up a small palm tree that lost its leaves to the winter frost. Out of each tiny white flower that blooms a small peapod emerges and grows very fast. With the sunlight in the background you can count the number of peas in each pod. I can hardly wait to pop these in my mouth.

The blue-green color of broccoli is a very pretty accent among the green plants in the garden. So far the plants are doing well but they'll need to hurry up and produce the edible stalks before it gets too warm.

The bush beans have tiny little beans on them but I discovered a squirrel atop my daughter's swingset munching on one of them. YIKES! I hope he doesn't eat them all. There are 3 beds of beans planted around the house - 2 in the front yard and 1 in the side yard. Hopefully, I'll at least get some out of the front yard. By the way, my neighbor came over to see what kind of veggies I was planting in the front yard this time. Last year he made fun of my tomato plant that was smack dab in the center of the bed alongside of the walkway to the front door. I told him, "That it's very European to plant vegetables in the frontyard." Somehow, he didn't seem too impressed by that. But hey, in my yard I've got to plant where the sunlight is!

Another new vegetable for me this year is summer squash. The plants took off right away and I was worried they'd be all leaves and no veggie, but if you look through the leaves you'll see an adorable baby squash. It's fun to go out every day and check the progress of the plants and watch the veggies grow bigger.