I have been wanting to plant a vegetable garden for a long time now, and this year, instead of just talking about it, I finally got around to it. Last summer I bought a raised bed kit (that never got taken out of the box) and this year we assembled it, located it in the back corner of the yard, filled it with soil (er... half-filled it; the soil has compacted down and absolutely needs to be topped up for next year) and then built a trellis from some copper pipe and some garden netting to support some vines. We picked out some seeds and a few seedlings, and got to work.
Right now, the garden is really flourishing, which makes me happy because the whole thing is just one huge experiment. We are square foot gardening so we have a lot crammed into a small space, and we are taking a 'one of everything' approach - partly to enjoy the variety, and partly to suss out what works and what doesn't. Next year we'll better know where to concentrate our energies.
I am pleased to report that we have more winners than losers. First up: this is a tomato that we are actually growing in a pot. It must have at least twenty green tomatoes on it. I was sort of picturing a steady supply of fresh tomatoes all summer but now I realize that we are going to have to eat tomatoes morning, noon and night for a week in August, and then they will probably all be done. See... we're learning lots.
In the garden itself - it's turning into a jungle! Clockwise from top left it's broccoli (which was Mallory's idea to plant), cherry tomatoes, and green beans - with a few marigolds in there to ward off the bugs (so far, so good.)
Other side of the bed: a pumpkin up top, peas to the left, romaine lettuce to the right, and carrots on the bottom, which we sowed three rows of a couple of weeks apart to give us a steady supply of carrots. And more marigolds.
The peas are on a trellis. We got our garden going in early May and I heard (after the fact) that you're supposed to plant peas on St. Patrick's Day - they will shrivel up in the heat of the summer. So I guess we're lucky that it's been a cool spring, after all. The peas are just starting to flower and will hopefully develop pods before the heat fries them. It would be disappointing to lose them now. We have two successive sowings of peas, too, to help spread out the harvest.
Here are our two under-performers. In the foreground is our cucumber, which got hit by frost in late May (despite me covering everything with towels on multiple occasions) and had to be re-sown. It has been slow getting going but we are finally getting a few more leaves. In the background (top left-ish) is a watermelon - it did not get hit by frost but has only really started growing leaves this week. It's got a lot of ground to make up.
I admire our vegetable garden as much for its looks as the bounty we hope it will yield - it's a good-looking mix of plants. We are not saving any money at all by growing our own food, because if I add up the cost of the garden kit, the soil, the trellis components, the seeds and seedlings... yikes. That could have bought a lot of tomatoes. But the kids are loving the process - they loved the planting, they fight over whose turn it is to water, and they love to run to the corner of the yard where our garden sits each day and report back on what's new: what seedlings have emerged, which plants are blossoming, and soon (hopefully) - which ones have edibles on them. And if it gets Mallory to eat just one more vegetable than she otherwise would have, it will be a resounding success.
The rest of the garden is doing well, too. I love June - everything is so lush and not yet fried by the summer sun and me forgetting to water it. These planters are on the pool deck - new this year - stuffed with an assortment of colourful stuff.
In the front yard I go with the same formula each year, more or less. Red geraniums, blue lobelia, white bacopa. I think last year I had yellow zinnias in there too and I wish I'd thought of that again this year. Instead I put in some purple sweet potato vine but it's not doing very well and it's hard to even see it.
The rose bushes are also flourishing, though one of them is being chewed by caterpillars. I tried spraying but it's done no good, so I have resorted to hand-picking the buggers each day. They gross me out but I think the population is declining so hopefully the worst is behind us.
More to come when we pick our first vegetables!
No comments:
Post a Comment