Garden Update July 21, 2015

Here are some pics of our garden, taken today.  It's been awhile since I've posted pics but it's fun to see how it's been growing since we first started it in 2012. 

Walking down into the garden, and most of the view to the left.   Brendan made nice paths this year with landscape cloth and big rocks that he dug out the garden while turning the soil.



Garden view to the right from the same spot.  Directly in front is a big patch of herbs like mint, sage, oregano, thyme, and our haskap bushes.

A view across the garden with a row of broccoli in front and tomatoes behind.  We've learned this year - way fewer tomato plants, like 60 instead of hundreds, with more space for them.

Our currant patch! The sticks my mom mailed me in 2012, wrapped in damp cloths, have grown up into these fine bushes.  I think they're all red currants and the black currants and gooseberries didn't make it.  It's hard to tell from this pic, but these bushes are all loaded with ripe currants...we're glad the birds have left them alone.  I'd like to think it's our payback for all the bird feeding we did all winter.

Yum.   So pretty and nutritious!

Here's a pic of the currants from 2012 when they arrived as sticks and I stuck them in pots of wet earth, a great example of how abundant the earth and how awesome and easy it is to grow your own healthy food.

Two rows of sugar snap peas to the left, a first foray into seed saving as I saved all these seeds last year.  Birch poles were thinned by Brendan off the property.  There's a row of beans to the right with a sunflower in front.

 Parris Island Romaine Lettuce, seeds from Halifax Seed.  Highly recommend; this variety is heirloom, very green, delicious and pest resistant.   We just need to get into 'succession seeding' so we don't have 100 heads of lettuce mature at once (oops, next year...)

Tiny Tim Cherry Tomato plants, also from Halifax Seed.  Brendan loves these, tomatoes are fun to grow but I'm pretty sure I'm nightshade intolerant, it's a common thing, especially in those of northern European descent.  Nightshades = tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, eggplant.  For folks with arthritis or inflammation issues it's potentially worth trying to give up on nightshades to see if it helps.

Our blueberry patch, just nine plants so far probably hard to see.

One of the three 'lowbush' blueberries we got from Land Care Nursery near by this year.  They were the most loaded, but the bushes we had last year had a record snowfall that damaged them a bit.