A-squash-colypse

 The squash harvest began today with two zucchini where I thought there was only one (both a little larger than ideal, but neither one a baseball bat), and two perfectly sized baby yellow squash. 

There are two Lunchbox peppers close to ripe, or maybe already ripe. I'm not sure how big they get, and they're a bit on the small size. 

Oh, wait, I just looked them up, and I guess they're full size, but they need to stay on the plant a bit longer to turn whatever color they're supposed to end up: red, yellow or orange. https://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/peppers/sweet-peppers/lunchbox-pepper-mix-organic-snack-pepper-seed-3515G.html

Although, the instructions say to pick the first few "promptly" to encourage more fruit set. And it looks like it takes about 3 weeks to go from green to the final color. So I probably won't have the patience to let the first two get to their final color, and I can claim it's for a reason other than impatience.

2026 Harvest

Easter egg radishes: 6

baby bok choi heads:

leaf lettuce: 

alpine strawberries:

lunchbox peppers (12 plants):

Ace peppers (3 plants):

banana peppers (3 plants, new-to-me variety):

Sungold tomatoes (12 plants):

basil:

sage:

dill:

chives:;'[

2026 spring activity

I refreshed the soil in the existing grow bag filled with strawberries and added two more grow bags (with a third on the to-do list). Instead only growing strawberries, half the cells (the bags are divided into quarters) are strawberries and the other half are cool-weather crops—radishes, lettuces, Little Shanghai bok choi. 

The raised beds are now mostly planted, except for the peppers being hardened off: 1) tomatoes and swiss chard; and 2) peppers and swiss chard and summer squash and herbs (in a separate pot). 

As of Memorial Day, I've harvested half a dozen radishes, and a few lettuce leaves. The bok choi, radishes, and lettuces were seeded every two weeks, and I think I'll do one more seeding of the bok choi now, and then another one in the fall. I've never grown bok choi before, regular or baby, so I had to look up the harvest instructions. Apparently it can be harvested by the leaf, start at the outside and working in, or as an entire head. I can do that!

2026 costs

 I could have sworn I'd started this post already, and it's too late to have truly accurate numbers. It's also an expensive year, because I invested in a second raised garden, and all the dirt and compost to fill it. And I topped off the original one, which had compacted as the cardboard and sticks on the bottom decomposed. So I'm just going to skip all of that, and you can assume it was in the $500 range. 

Other guesstimates:

Seeds: about $100

Seed-starting equipment (light/mat): $100

Additional grow bags: $20?

I didn't buy any plants (yet), since I invested in the seed-starting equipment.