I bet you thought we had a major vegetable garden FAIL and we’re trying to brush it under the rug by never again talking about our project of the century. Well, you’ll be happy to know the garden is actually been growing like crazy!! Take a look:
Way back in May:
The leafy greens in the partial shade garden
Placement planning for the vegetables and the mini herb garden (lemon balm, chives, and tarragon)
Mint and raspberries (unfortunately the raspberries aren’t doing well, but I had read that the transplant is unlikely to fruit in it’s first year…too bad)
Early June:
First beans!
All the transplants were holding up nicely, tomatoes, leeks, orange peppers in the ground and jalapeño in containers
Cucumbers, butternut squash, and peas
We had extra plants after giving some to family and friends, so we did a couple of experimental plantings. Here are cucumbers closely planted in a window box with organic potting soil.
Mid June:
Most of the veggies are growing like mad, even the Parisian Carrots are starting to show
The bean plants were starting to give us enough beans for a meal every 4 or 5 days
The zucchini and lettuces were holding up with the unseasonably warm then cold weather
Last day of June:
The carrots are coming along and tomatoes are starting to grow!!
We’ve already eaten a few smallish cucumbers, the newly planted sugar baby watermelon seeds are poking out of the ground and peas are coming
I feel like the pepper plants are still kind of small, but they’re starting to get little peppers nubs(?) on them!
The beans are really starting to give us meal worthy amounts and the squash is taking over
Another experiment, a mix of jalapeño and orange peppers closely planted in a pot. They’re mixed because the seed starters blew over and got mixed up so we don’t know which is which. In my research on growing a garden, I’d read somewhere that planting peppers closer together than recommended can help to protect the fruit from burning in the sun. We’ll see if these work out.
And finally, an overview of the entire garden. The tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, beans, squash, peppers, leeks, and carrots. As you can see we’ve trained the cucumbers up a couple pieces of lattice that was lying around the backyard, staked the tomatoes with sticks from our ever-shedding maple tree, and put a mini chicken wire fence around the garden to keep the dog out!Another experiment is having the container cucumbers, on the far right, grow up a gate that was in the backyard too. My hope is that the plants will grow enough to camouflage the ugly structures and make the fence look more lush and be a bit more private. There really is nothing like living next to a daycare in the summer with little kids you don't know asking you "what's that?" "what are you doing?" "why?" "where's your dog?" "why are you reading?" "how old are you?" through the spaces in the fence while you're trying to relax in the sun.
The empty lump to the left is the watermelon, the zucchini, the lemon balm, chives, tarragon and a cilantro plant from a local nursery.
Here are the lettuces, spinach, and broccoli, minus the arugula, which I cut down because it had already gone to seed. Everything perked up later once this garden was out of the sun again :P Also, something has eaten all but 1 broccoli plant and most of the spinach before we can get to it.
We’ve been having a real problem with pests eating the plant leaves. In an effort to keep the garden au naturale we planted some marigolds around all the garden fences, and some nasturtiums (a climbing vine) along the fence behind the lettuces, both of which have bug repelling properties, hopefully!
See everything is shaping up nicely! I must say, every chance I get, I proudly declare that we’re eating veggies we grew from seed!
Have YOU been growing anything in YOUR backyard? Or maybe YOU have some tips for pest control in the garden? Let me know!
Great job ! Looks like you'll have a bounty of veggies come a short while ! Nice ! Well keep trying to keep the veggie eating varmints out of your food..good luck :)
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