Well I dozed off on the couch and instead of going straight to bed I got the dogs out and figured I'd poke my head on here. I got my garden 98% planted. I still have a handful of tomatoes to put in but I'm mostly done. A bit of a sunburn but otherwise I'm pleased with how everything went. I have tomatoes left to plant because after spacing everything out I realized I still had room. As my wife says "Heaven forbid you have an empty space in the garden".
I have the "If I have to keep it weeded I want something there to benefit from weeding instead of just space" mentality.
All my peppers have buds on them ready to open, both sweet and hot including my 4 colors of bell peppers. I supplimented with a calcium suppliment hoping to avoid the blossom end rot that plagued my bell peppers last year. I must have tossed 50% of the bell peppers that I grew due to blossom end rot. They were the only thing that was affected, so we'll see. I did both Red Beauty and Early Red bells this year too trying to find a variety that will actually give me a good red bell pepper. Valencia is my orange that I'm trying. Who knows maybe Ill have a ton of green peppers since nothing colored up this year. We'll see.
I also have 2 Black Krims, over 3 dozen Early Girls, 2 dozen Romas, a handful of Lemon Boys, and 2 Jet Stars for tomatoes. I've never grown the Black Krims but they come well very well regarded so I figured why not? The Jet Stars I got on a whim since I had some extra room and I wanted a bigger slicer than the Early Girls but to me the Big boy and Better boy varieties take too long for what I got out of them. So I figured I'd give the Jet Stars a try. Based on what I've read they hopefully will fit the bill and will be a staple in my garden just as the Early Girls, Romas, and Lemon Boys have become.
The Black Krims are my one "weird thing" for this summer. My wife says I'm allowed to have 1 "weird thing" a year and this year its them. Last year it was a handful of purple potatoes. As far as the definition of "weird things" its anything that isn't traditional. Like purple potatoes, yellow tomatoes, green tomatoes chocolate peppers, black tomatoes, purple bell peppers, etc. After doing both both yellow and green tomatoes we really liked the Lemon boys which are a yellow slicer, the Green Zebras were a pain since you had to palpate each tomato to determine if it was ripe which was a big time killer when I can easily pick just by looks with the other varieties. The flavor didn't make it worth the effort when harvesting.
Sometimes my weird things are for flavor like the tomatoes. I've heard good things about the black varieties so I figured why not? I bought them at the nursery and with only 2 plants its really not a big deal to try it. The yellows I started with 2 of those the first year I grew them year and now I've got a bunch of them. The other reason I grow my "weird things" is for the kids be it mine or our nieces and nephews like the purple potatoes and next year I plan on doing the mixture of
colored carrots literally for the little people in the family. I plan on having them all come over and help dig them up and watch as they find all the colors of carrots. I won't tell them what I've done Ill just say I need help and let them discover what I've grown. Having fun things for the kids is
VERY important to me. I want them to try new things and be willing to experiment, and help encourage them to get into the garden or at least outside and exploring the world around them. Heck I'm also the one who wants a mix of hens from EEs to a Marans and a Welsummer for a mix of colored eggs which is going to be a 2013 or 2014 project darn it!! Maybe I'm crazy but I see it as I can always get white eggs at the store, why not have the kids go out and flip over finding a blue chicken egg, or a really dark, or speckled one? They taste the same and cook up just as well so why not have some fun with what I can grow or collect? It would be like an Easter Egg hunt every time they go out to the coop. I figure one of each breed and not push them hard to lay should ensure I get a good mix of colored eggs. Its also why I do a good carving jack-o-lantern type pumpkins and the Atlantic Dills the GIANT pumpkins. I love that they come over all summer and rush to the garden to inspect the progress and argue over which pumpkin is going to be theirs even though they are all green on the vine. To me that means I'm doing something right and makes all my efforts worth it.
I also got a bunch of volunteer russet, red skins and purple potatoes that I planted around because I'm a big softie and opted to keep them going instead of transplanting them or even just pulling them. I couldn't believe they survived 3 tillings. 1 last fall and 2 this spring. Unbelieveable. I'm still going to mulch them and see what I can get. I hadn't planned on growing any this year but hey I'm not going to argue with volunteers. Oh well I'm rambling.....nite ya'll!!
Thats alot of tomatoes! 
