Garden Update and Tour- June 6

I am long overdue for an update. I've been taking pictures each week but unfortunately, none of those have made it to the computer until now. Here is what the garden is looking like, and what I've been harvesting.

 We've been eating snow peas and snap peas with almost every meal. I need to freeze some.

 Raspberries are ripe (on the smaller canes at least). This variety is "heritage". You can harvest twice a year if you leave up last years canes or one big harvest if you cut them down. I opted to cut mine down last year. I'm glad I did too, they are bigger and healthier this year.

 Cam just put up this trellis for me. It's cedar and wire to hold up the canes. I think we need more raspberries since we eat these way too fast.

 Here's a look at the smaller garden. From left, strawberries, tomatoes, onions and carrots, peas, and cucumber. I harvested the last of the kale. I blanched and froze maybe 10-15lbs if I had to guess. The kale got too big for the floating row cover so I ditched it. It lasted a good month before it started getting attacked by cabbage worms. Once that happened I picked it all.

Peas and cucumber on the bottom. My cucumber got a slow start because the peas shaded it for a long time.

 Guess what this is?! Fennel bulbs. I still have bad acid reflux and fennel is good for that. I also just like the taste.

 My tomatoes in this bed are big and healthy (I can't quite say as much for the new garden)

 Now for the in progress garden!

 It has been so crazy trying to get all the beds in, planted, trying to maintain (weed and fertilize), and just finish. I'm so glad next year will be MUCH easier. We  used a lot of native soil to save money but unfortunately the soil here is so low in nutrients. I mixed in a bit of compost to each bed but it just hasn't been enough. I keep telling myself next year will be better as far as harvest too since I will be able to incorporate more organic matter.

 This is what it looks like from doors.

 Here's my beans- I'll update varieties later I can't remember right now.

 Peppers- tam jalepeno, california wonder, red cheese

 Kids garden. The tall plant is sunflowers.

 Lemon squash, dill, row of radish, and cosmos. See what I mean about the soil?! Yikes. I have been pounding on the fertilizer. I will get more compost too load on soon too.

 Sweet potatoes- beauregard (I am really behind and put these in like four days ago).

 Lettuce and tomatoes- this bed has ozark pink, amish paste, san marzano, black cherry tomatoes. Red romaine lettuce, slow bolt lettuce, a french butter type, and arugula. We've been eating a lot of arugula and lettuce. Arugula is going to seed now though.

 Onions- white and red southport, and shallots. And parsnips in the middle of this back bed.

 This bed has herbs- parsley, basil, oregano, sorrel. In the back I planted more cucumbers I will update the variety later.

 The back two beds are my asparagus.

 Another view from behind. As you can see we are still working on getting landscape fabric and mulch down in the rows.

 After the raised beds are the blueberries. We covered them with pine bark. Surprisingly they seem to be doing pretty good.

Here's what growing in the very back. (Next year I will plant fruit trees here)

 Watermelon (planted these late, but better late than never!) - ali baba and blacktail mountain

 More watermelon, and cantaloupe in the front.

 Winter squash- white cushaw. Weeds in back :) I'm hoping to flame weed the area then smother with hay. I really need to beef up the soil back here for my future fruit trees.

 Close up. Roma tomatoes. Like I said, the tomatoes in my new garden are not as healthy as they should be. I'm glad they still seem to be producing ok though!

Below is my blackberries. All came up but one.

 Some of the plants grew shoots off the old cane and are producing some berries.

From the road. Cam is still working to get the fence done.

Garden Progress April 11-25th

Things have really greened up around here! Two weeks ago it was looking like this.

 And here it is today. Lots of green on those trees! We've been hurrying to get everything dug in. All the beds are dug into the hill now. I planted my tomatoes. The first garden bed on the right- I gave to the kids to do their own garden. I figured we would start small and if they took good care of it this year they could earn more space of their own next year. Closest to the road, I seeded parsnips, and planted some onions I started indoors.

Right now on the to do list is sod for outside the garden, and mulching in between the beds. But actually very first, I'm just trying to get everything planted. 

Here is the back half. Starting from the very back the three mounds are watermelon, winter squash, and cantaloupe. When my Mom and Jimmy were here they helped with digging beds and putting down mulch in between the blueberries. I covered the area with landscape fabric first to avoid weeds popping up. 

I seeded some fescue grass in the front. It was my first time seeding grass! I was surprised it grew but it's a little patchy so I'll have to over seed before we get a bunch of weeds in there.

 Here we are at the small garden where my lovely helper is showing his true colors. I planted some more tomatoes over here in the back left bed. I picked and froze a bunch of kale because we can't eat it fast enough. Back right bed is more onions and I seeded carrots. In my compost last year I used grass clippings, which I will not do again. The soil is lovely, but I am also now weeding like crazy in this back bed where I used the compost. It looks like I planted crabgrass instead of carrots- it's that bad! I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to torch the weeds and start over or spend the time weeding them out.

You may note there is a chicken perched on the side of my garden in the above photo. My boys like to play with them a little too much :)

Garden progress April 4th- 11th

 We've got a lot accomplished this week. From the top, I planted emerald arborvitae trees so we can eventually have a little more privacy. I also seeded fescue grass between the blackberries which I covered with hay in hopes of it not sliding down the hill. We also set up irrigation hoses for blackberries and the trees until they get established.

 Our lilac bush is in full bloom. They smell so delicious. Every time I walk by I am sniffing them. More than once, I've had a neighbor drive by as I'm sniffing away which makes me giggle.

 You can't really see it but along the edges of this box is arugula, butter lettuce, and red romaine.

 Asparagus are really coming up now. You are suppose to plant them in a trench and fill it up as they grow. It's time to fill things in a few inches with soil!

 Blueberries are sprouting. I'm most nervous about getting my blueberries to grow (because they really particular about soil acidity and moisture) so I'm glad to see so far they are surviving.

 We added mulch to make some new beds around the house.

 I plan on planting flowers around the perimeter of the garden. And we will get bermuda sod to go on the dirt (outside the garden of course!!!) soon.

 We harvested a ton of kale this week and made kale chips.

Here's the deck view.

 Once the beds are all dug in I'm planning on putting wood mulch in the walkways. Maybe in future years we will upgrade to something more permanent like rock but for now the mulch will do the trick I think.

Garden Progress March 28-April 4th

We've been so busy I forgot to update on 2 weeks ago progress.

Close up picture of fence

 Garden beds are getting dug out.

 Cam rented a tiller and broke up all the rocks and clay so it would be easier to dig out the beds and prep them. I am using lots of native soil.  Which is basically just clay and adding peat moss and compost to break it up.

We planted asparagus roots this year and they are coming up. We won't be able to harvest any until next year.

 Tiller, and blackberries in the front.

 My kale hiding under the cover

 Here I tilled up that hairy vetch. It doesn't look like it now that it's dry, but the soil has become really nice in these beds.

 Strawberries

 Overall look from deck