The subtitle of this post should be "how insane we are" as we dug this whole garden by hand. I finally finished planting the last of the flowers in it today. These pics were all taken yesterday, and I'm throwing them on the blog mainly because it's nice to have a record of where we're at, to compare year over year. way bigger garden this year, considering last year most of what we grew was in the section with just the pole beans and lettuce.
Views from the top of the garden:
We took up all the silage plastic we put down last year, making the area relatively easy to dig. Though some beds had a lot of rocks, which we used to make borders. Some of the rocks were rather large...
Pumpkin Patch: Giant pumpkins, Connecticut Field Pumpkins and Sugar pumpkins. above there's a patch with some lupines and sunflowers
Summer squash patch (zucchini and some other small yellow type which already has little squashes on it)
winter squash patch (acorn, butternut, buttercup, spaghetti)
Currants! the Currant clippings my mom mailed me last year are doing great, most of them survived the winter, along with one gooseberry bush.
A few of the bushes actually have currants on them already, wasn't expecting that so soon!
We ended up with about 14 big rows in the main part, 2 rows onion with some turnips and jalapeno peppers, 1 row with beets, bok choy and radishes, 1 row carrots, 1 row peas, 2 rows cucumbers, 1 row celery, and, um, 8 rows of tomatoes. around 200 plants, 10 types. this was after me spending the spring insisting on thinning the seedlings but giving in to Brendan who was all "no no no, we'll plant them all". After last year's tomato disaster I don't mind if we do end up with 2 tonnes. (calculating 10 lbs/plant). perhaps 2013 will see our first "Tomato Festival". I planted 10 kinds: Tiny Tim, Humbolti, Gardener's Delight (all cherry tomatoes) and Cole, Olpaka, Amish Paste, Brandywine, Scotia, Stupice and Early Latah. So far I have to say the seeds I got from Annapolis Seed are great ( all except the brandywine, scotia and tiny tim).
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| Raspberries on the left, which I planted last year, with a few new beds of flowers and herbs in between. the row in the middle is mostly beets, peas on the right |
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| Peas, carrots which are just starting to come up, 2 rows of moneymaker cucumbers which aren't doing very well, we fertilized with fish fertilizer today but started some more seeds too |
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| tomatoes |
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| more tomatoes. I've been reading up on companion planting a lot so the tomatoes are interspersed with basil, cilantro, parsley, and petunias |
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| tomatoes with some basil plants |
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| peas.. I learned if you start peas in side and then take off for weeks, come back, and its too rainy to plant the garden for 2 more weeks, your plants get huge and gangly and easily destroyed in transplanting as it is so easy to snap their vines. very few pea plants lived through this ordeal so I started new seeds in the row right away, the new seedlings are coming along and I learned my lesson... |
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| turnips, the leaves of which are getting devoured by flea beetles, and a row and a half of onions |
Romaine Lettuce Patches, I just started another seeding of romaine as well as some buttercrunch lettuce today
This year we have 3 bean pole teepees, this shot also shows one of the 3 sprinklers Brendan installed in the garden, they work really well
Scarlet Runner beans, one plant is flowering already
The last area has one row potatoes, a few rows each red cabbage, kale, broccoli, and a new rhubarb plant, which is near the broccoli because apparently they'll grow well together. I planted some oregano and petunias in between the cabbage plants to help discourage pests. I'm pleased to see there are snakes and birds frequenting this patch, hopefully eating more pests.
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| Red cabbage and oregano plants. There are some petunias too, but they're hard to see |
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| Broccoli, with a rhubarb plant in the back corner |
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| A row of bush beans in with the kale |
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| Kale! we ate a few leaves today already. I regret not thinning the plants sooner or transplanting into bigger pots. next year. |
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| Our fence, Brendan put in fence posts with cord, and then attached extender posts to the top to make the thing 8' tall. There are also club soda can windchimes around it. Hopefully this works, or if the deer brave the fence they get tangled up in it and we can eat them. I've been trying to keep the more delicious plants in the center of the garden, and plant things they apparently don't like around the edges to trick them. |
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| Mint patch I started last year growing well: catnip for the cat, 2 oregano plants, a lavender, and chocolate mint, peppermint, spearmint and english mint. The mint is super good to drink just pour boiling water over a few sprigs. I love mint and deer don't, so I'll probably bust some of this up to plant at the edges of the garden this year. |
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| a couple giant sunflower plants, above the pumpkin patch. I started a bunch of sunflowers this year but instead of a big row there are a few groupings around the garden |
Everything got planted out by the first few days of June, and with the exception of the new pea shoots, onions and turnips almost everything was started inside and grown under lights. Next year we'll be more diligent about transplanting seedlings into 4" pots so the plants are even bigger and more robust before they go into the garden, so we'll be getting some more (T-8) light kits.
It's fun to see how much everything has grown that was started last year, as well as how much further ahead we are this year. Last year my first 'garden update' was July 6: . Wow! Our pumpkins and squash plants look deceptively big in this older post, because we crammed in a few plants/hill. this year everyone has a lot more room to grow.
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