June Update

June has been a hectic month for me.  I was out of town for the first two weeks of the month, back for a week, and then gone for another five days.  I was desperate to get back to my garden as you can imagine.  But in spite of my absence, the garden survived, imagine that!!!  I got lucky that it rained so much, eventhough I had my husband ready and willing to water in my absence.  When I got back everything had grown so much, I was taken back by it.  In my humble partial opinion, it looks wonderful.  Here is a picture.

When I got back, my husband helped me building the trellises for the cucumbers and the melons.  They turned out to be quite simple, we used electrical conduit and then I sprayed painted them in green so they would look a bit better in the garden.  Now, the only thing pending is building a cage around the tomatoes to prevent any squirrel attack.  My husband has already a design in mind, so that’s coming, I really dont know how he is going to build it, so it will be a surprise for me, yay!

So the peas did really good, my small makeshift trellises did ok, at the end they started to lean over and looked a bit like the tower of Pizza, but they did their job.

Another one that did good were the spinachs and the lettuces.  We have been  eating salad greens from the garden since the end of May.  My original idea of the peppers shading the spinach did not work out too well.  While I was away the spinach did not get cut down or trimmed so they grew like crazy and started actually shading the peppers, I had to do some major trimming when I got to the garden to rescue my peppers.  So we ate tons of spinach for a week.  Now I already pull them out since it’s getting a too warm for them and they were starting to bolt.  The lettuces, buttercrunch, on the other hand are still sweet.  I have them under a cover to shade them a bit.  The little ceasars got already bitter, so I have to finish pulling them out.  I will replace them with some Jericho which is supposedly heat tolerant, we’ll see.

Now I’m waiting for the next batch of veggies to mature.  I have some baby cucumbers, the carrots are still to small (I pulled some just to check, they were so sweet), the zucchinis are huge and have lots of female flowers but still yet to set one.  The melons same story, lots of flowers, but still nothing.  I have been checking them daily because I have cucumber beetles galore, and I yesterday I caught two squash bugs, ohhhh, they have found me.  The plants are still ok, but I already planted a couple of replacement plant where the broccoli was, just in case.  Here is a picture of the squashes (zucchinis). One of my original concerns with the squashes was space but they seem to be doing ok.  They are starting to spill over into the path.  They have taken like half of it, but there is still plenty room for walking by.  Now, if only they would start producing.  They other experiment I did was with the sunflowers and the pole beans.  Well so far so good, everybody seem very happy.  The problem I see is that I’m going to have problems reaching the beans, they are climbing up from the netting I set up for them onto the sunflowers that are as of now over I don’t know 7 feet tall, there is no way I can reach up there unless I get my stepping ladder, lol!

Update on the Garden

This is an update on my potager.  All of the beds are planted and are starting to look a bit full.  I’m happy with the layout so far.  The paths at this point seem to be wide enough.  I hope that by the end of the summer I can still say the same the thing.  Here is how it looks so far.  

The paths are 3 feet wide, mulch over newspaper/cardboard.  It has worked great, at the beginning of spring I had some wild violets trying to come through, but I just pulled them out and so far so good.  Later on the oak tree seedlings started to come out too and I did the same.  Since I’m in the garden several times a day, I just pick whatever is trying to come out.

This other picture is of the larger bed.  Something that I have learned so far is that the cooler weather crops are not ready to come out by the time I have to plant the heat loving crops like peppers and tomatoes.

For instance the peppers where supposed to replace the spinach, but the spinach is not done yet, so I just planted the peppers in the middle of the spinach.  Eventually the spinach will be done, and if anything, I think that the peppers may shade the spinach some which should be good when it starts getting too hot.  Another experiment I’m trying is planting my pole beans in the squares next to the sunflowers.  They may try to climb the sunflowers which may work although I’m still going to set up posts in the squares of beans for them to clim.   Also, I  planted nasturtium at the foot of the sunflowers.  I read somewhere that the nasturtiums will not give too much flowers in a soil that’s too rich, so I figure the sunflowers are heavy feeders and will leave just a bit for the nasturtiums to prosper enough.  I don’t know if it will work or not.

Going back to my space issues, I had to plant my cucumbers among my little ceasar lettuce.  Again, I think in a month those lettuces will be spent and the cucumbers will be taking over.  Another issue I have encounter so far, and this one is out of my control, is the weather.  I planted everything the first week of may, but since then we have had so many overcast or/and rainy days that all my heat loving plants have been struggling.  I hope they get better soon.   Here are other shots of the potager. 

I want to include in this post shots of the other beds in my garden.  Here is my broccoli-cabbages-lettuces bed. I am going to use it for veggies that don’t

require much sun because I only get like 4-5 hours of sun here.  This year I planted broccoli, cabbage, beets, lettuces and radishes.  I have to say none of them did too well.  The broccoli starting making a head and then we got 90 degree weather so that was the end of it.  Some of the other broccoli and the cabbage I started them too late, then got attacked by cabbage worms and I really don’t think they are going to give me anything this season.  The beets were at total disaster, they took forever to sprout, then I think the slugs eat them in spite of the Sluggo I used.  So I just planted some cauliflower in the middle of the few seedlings that survived, just for the fun of it.  The radishes did so so, I just don’t know if I’m not planting them deep enough, or I just pull them too soon, but they were so little.  The lettuces are actually doing good.  My question now is what I’m supposed to do when summer gets here.  I may try to create a shade umbrella or something and keep going with the lettuces or plant some flowers, the spot just doesn’t get enough sun for beans or tomatoes; maybe some carrots.

And here is my herb bed.  This bed is going on its third year and half of it it’s doing handsomely.    Half of it were lavenders, and they just did not make through the winter, so I had to replace them.  Here is how it looks now, a little lopsided, but oh well.

I have sage, thyme, oregano, parsley, chives, baby basil, baby cilantro, lemon verbena, taragon and rosemary here.

May 14

Ok,

So I’m almost done with all the planting.  Today I planted the foxgloves in the backyard by the hostas.  The idea is for them to give a background to the hostas and give some color during the summer.  It’s going to take another year for the flowers to come, but that’s the story with gardening, patience!!!

I also finished planting the hycinth beans in the pot by the driveway.  And today I started the irrigation project.  Have to reinstall the soaker hoses in all the beds. (silly me, I removed them last fall).  Today I did the bed by the driveway were the Japanese Irises and the Peonias are. 

On the Potager, the beans are out, really quick considering I planted them on Monday.  I got four kind of beans: Yard long, Kentucky Wonder, Tavera and Edemame.  Here are the Yard Long and the Kentucky Wonder.

May 13

Update:

On the 5th and 6th I moved all the tomatoes and peppers to the raised beds.  The peppers are doing fabulous, but the tomatoes are looking sickly.  On Monday, after finishing planting the beans,  I fertilized everything with a shower of fish emulsion, but the tomatoes seem to be lacking something.  Today I added some Tomato Tone to see if that does the trick.

The eggplants were doing great until 2 days ago when I noticed they are being attacked by what I think is flea beetles.  I covered them with a Rotenone Dust by bionade to repel the fleas.  Also used it on the broccoli, cauliflower and cabage because they were being attacked by cabbage worms.

Other than that all the plants are growing really slowly.  I’m still waiting for some flowers from the peas, and for the spinachs to grow a bit more.  Slow progress….

May 1st

I have been diligent at keeping up with my seedlings.  Yesterday I move the zucchinis and the cantaloupes to their final destination.  They look great and I’m glad I moved them now because the roots were already being constrained by the pots.  I had to rearrange the plan I had created back in March.  I decided not to plant any corn; this gave me the space I needed for the cucumbers.  Silly me I thought that by May 15 the peas were going be done with and I was going to plant the cucumbers there.  So giving up the corn idea is good, I got the space and I will not have to fight with the squirrels for it.  Besides I had not allocated enough space for it to germinate properly, so good riddance.  Here is how my zucchinis and melons look like in their new home.

The broccoli on my old flower bed already has some heads!!!! These are my first broccolis, I’m so excited!

April 28, 2009

This week we have had temperatures reaching the 90’s.  All the seedlings have been growing like crazy. Here is a look of my potager so far.  The bushes at the end are my blueberries.  They had so many flower buds, but I had to remove them so that all the energy goes into making roots. 

The Peas have doubled in size this week.  I had to go buy netting to wrap around my tepee.  Here is how they are looking. The Carrots I planted on April 06, have germinated and are doing great also.  We had a couple of squirrel encounters but so far no much damage. I planted two kinds of lettuces from seeds, and they all germinated great.   

Now the onions I planted a month ago, but they haven’t grown much.  They have barely survived.  The beets are another one that have been slow to germinate.  Here is how they look after almost a month.  Here are my seedlings waiting to go on the ground.  After the rains we are expecting this Wednesday, I will start putting them on the ground.  The nights should stay above 50, and the days just above 70.  Also the oak tree across the street should be done releasing all its polen and will be able to stay outside longer.  My allergies are at their worst right now.  I have been having some problems with some of the seedlings, the zuchinnis have some yellow leaves and some discoloration (yellow) on others. I dont know what is causing it. 

April 18: Seedling Picture Update

The seedlings are doing good.  My peas have not been discovered by the bunnies yet.  I think that the raised beds have discourage them from coming to my yard.

The seedlings in my little greenhouse are doing great, in spite of the tempeture dropping to the low 40’s.  The tomatoes are really good. 

Here is a picture of the potager with the seedlings.  The carrots are just coming out.  I still have not remove the burlap I placed on top of them to keep the soil humid.  To the right is a picture of the onions and the lettuce.  The onions have not grown much yet.  I think it was a bit too cold for them, but the books said it was ok to plant them in the ground.

The Potager

Last year I decided I wanted to expand my veggie garden, but considering that my only sunny spot is my front yard I knew that any new veggie space had to be tasteful and pretty so the neighbors wouldn’t get shocked.  We decided to go with a potager.  Last fall we covered 1/3 of our lawn (12′ x 30′) with newspapers and leafgro and left it to nature to do the lawn killing/removal.  Early this spring I helped my husband build the raised beds.  We have to go this way because our soil is just clay and besides it looked like too much work removing any grass left and amend the soil afterwards.  Besides the raised beds would look prettier.  It took me over a month of thinking and drawing to come up with a design for the space. Once in place it looked so neat.  The next step was filling the boxes.  Originally I wanted to go with the Square Foot Garden mix, but it would be to expensive, so I just filled it with topsoil and compost.  Filling the boxes and mixing the soil and compost was quite some work. For the paths I used mulch over newspaper.  It looks great even now that the few seedlings are so small to make any contribution to the aesthetics of the potager.

The next phase was coming up with a design for the plants.  The more I read the more overwhelm I felt.  Deciding over colors, shapes, and season for the plants, and not to forget that we have to like them, otherwise why even bother, was exhausting.  When one looks at the pictures in the books, everything is so neat, but when i would try to visualize what my little garden was going to look like, i would go blank. Because of this I was a bit late ordering my seeds.  I ordered them form Seeds of Change and Seed Savers Exchange. I got broccoli, cabbage, carrots, radishes, beets, peas, lettuces, peppers (sweet and hot), tomatoes, cucumbers, corn ( I don’t know what I was thinking) and summer squashes.   I started my first seeds on the 18th of March and planted the peas on the 23rd of March, the seedlings are doing great. Also, I ordered some onion seedlings and planted them on the 30 of March, that same day I planted some carrots, radishes, and beets, too.  The radishes are doing splendid and the beets are just coming out.

Im truly excited about this year’s garden.  I have put a lot of effort and thought into it, but it’s so rewarding just walking by it every mornng and seeing how a seedling got a new set of leaves, or how a pea it’s getting its tendils out.  The garden connects me with nature, with the seasons.  Im so in tune with the tempeture, with the rain, the sun, and the wind.  They all play such an important role in my life now, I cannot imagine a day without checking how sunny the day is going to be or how the soil is warming up or losing humidity.  All the work is worth these connections.

Short History of My Garden

We bought the house in December of 2005.  When we moved in, there was not much to be seen, so we waited for the garden to reveal itself to us the spring of 2006.  We were pleasantly surprised, we had some beautiful peonias and some lilies, azaleas galore in the backyard and some hostas.  The front yard had two established beds but they were just weeds.  That year, I didn’t do much but observe the development of the garden.  In 2007 I redid the front bed by removing all but some boxwoods and planted herbs, I also cleaned up the bed by the driveway, and silly me decided to clean up the azaleas by removing the thick mulch of leaves they had, in other words I set the stage for the demise of the poor things.  To add to their misery, that year we suffered a drought.  By 2008 several of the azaleas had died, and the remaining ones did not bloom as profusely as they had in 2006.  By then, I had learned of my mistake and started restoring the leaf mulch around them, and although we had a good rainy season, I still lose some more.  In 2008, I also expanded my garden.  I reclaimed an area in the front yard that we had resod in 2006 since it had been used for veggies by the previous owner.  I planted tomatoes that I had started from seeds in that new bed and peppers, both sweet and hot, in the herb bed, and some more herbs.  2008 was a year of learning and experimenting.  I realized how much I love to garden and started planning on expanding.

The Herb Garden 2007

View Album at Shutterfly