Radishes, sun and a little rain

Strange how one radish is shaped differently...

Looks like 3 zucchinis!



Wonder how many of these will thrive?

An Orange or Yellow Sweet Pepper

The basil's looking better.

I hear I may have too much asparagus, we'll see!



Some more baby tomatoes slowly getting larger.

The radishes have gotten big, so I harvested quite a few on Saturday, 6/16. . Some were sauteed and used in a cheese omelete. Evidentally radishes are not very spicy once cooked, who knew!

I also planed what I believe are sunflowers on the north edge of the garden space. It's either sunflowers or zinnia's... time will tell if the little plants aren't devoured before then.

This week I spend a bit of time researching composting, and row covers. When I plant a late summer crop of lettuce and spinach, I plan to use a row cover and need to get that in place. The type of composting I'm interested in a three bin wooden type, which looks to work most efficiently for moving the compost as it evolves into soil.



Garden, early June

Today I had a few things I wanted to take care of, first of which was making a trip to Menards to pick up some supplies.  I wanted to move the chives from next to the patio to our garden, and needed to get some mulch to place around the front small garden area, and where the chives were previously. 

I also purchased varieties of lettuce that I plan to plant as a fall crop. I've researched bed covers and hoops and will need to acquire these in order for the greens to not be eaten.  Seeds purchased:

• Spinach
• Carrots, short 'n Sweet 
• Tom Thumb Heirloom lettuce
• Baby Choi Cabbage
• Gourmet Blent Lettuce
• Swiss Chard
• Cilantro
• Zinnia
• Sunflowers

I planted a 1/2 row of cilantro, and some marigolds to hopefully ward off garden pests.  I will need to look up what marigolds ward off, I can't remember, but read they help with some unwanted creatures.  A friend also mentioned that cilantro keeps bunnies away.  I moved a small amound of chives to the garden corner.   

Already, I've had a few learning challenges. For one, the tomato leaves and branches are being eaten, and so is the basil. I decided to plant additional basil, from seed, and also picked off the eaten basil leaves.  The one zucchini plant looks particularly healthy altough one of the flowers was 1/2 eaten.  I don't know if that means a zuchini won't grow there.  I noticed alot of blooms so am hopeful this one zucchini plant will do well.

I noticed that the asparagus is beginning to grow.   I also noticed a couple pretty birds on our feeder, in addition to our trusty starling!

Plans for next year are to convert the garden space to raised 4' x 16' beds, which will be much easier to manage.  For now, the 16x16 square garden will be fine, I did notice tons of worms and the soil looked to be fairly fertile.  

Bearded-Tongue in bloom

The chives were on the other side of these flowers

 

Basil looking terrible

Newly seeded pot with basil seeds

Basil on right, with rosemary on left and French Tarragon

More basil seeds, sunflowers and zinnias

zucchini plant

Beginning of Garden

I have always wanted a vegetable garden, but have been fearful of the work and dediction it takes to be successful.  Our summers are hot, and in the middle of summer, working outside isn't high on my list..  This year, I took the leap, and plunged in.  More planning should have been done, but things will simply evolve.

I asked a neighbor with a garden for input, and plotted out a 16' x 16' area.  Since then, I'm thinking rows 4' deep and 16' long would be easier.  I can change it next year!

The started garden, 5/16

The primary goal is to have tomatoes, and again, since I didn't plan, didn't start with seeds and chose types based on what the nursery had on hand.  Other vegetables planted: 

• asparagus- won't have any until 3 years out.  Mary Washington variety
• zucchini squash
• carrots- seeds
• radishes- seeds
• sweet peppers - plants
• Swiss chard - plan
• sweet basil
• rosemary
• thyme

 Rows and trenches for asparagus

 three rows planted, tomatoes, peppers, swiss chard, zucchini, broccoli

 the zucchini plant, a couple weeks after being planted

the better looking tomato plant

Lessons learned so far:

• Protect lettuce from animal that ate the whole swiss chard plant two days after planting
• Protect tomato plants from whatever is chomping down all the leaves to the quick
• rows 4' wide are easier to get to and work