Gardens update

 Alright, so here it is the end of June and I am woefully behind and really seriously slacking in the garden dept.  This is a picture of the garden at this moment - in DESPERATE need of some weeding!  Did I mention that we moved to a brand new spot and hubby wanted a "traditional row garden"?  I *really* prefer my square foot/ lasagna bed garden - so much easier!  Things are growing in here, among the weeds.  We have harvested some peas, lettuce and cucumbers.  There are onions, carrots, beets, peppers, chard, collards, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprout, kale, beans, lots of squash, and pumpkin.  The corn didn't really come up and the chickens found their way back in - their favorite dust bathing spot is where we planted the corn, so that's a lost cause.  The 30 tomato plants that we planted from seed?  Well, about 3 of them came up.  So, I bought 6 plants at Lowe's and then found a lady on craigslist selling tomato plants for $2 each.  She had sold most of them but had some left and said I could just have them for free since they were getting straggly being in containers so long.  So, I picked up 20 free tomato plants!  :-)  I now have 24 plants in the ground doing well and probably at least 18 different varieties - which is tons of fun!  Below are pics of the peas, apples, and the fig tree so far this year.  I have also harvested some asparagus, and rhubarb and very soon will be picking lots of wild and domestic blackberries.

Gardens update

Well, things are definitely happening outdoors here!  :-)

The spinach, lettuce, beets, chard, peas and kale are growing well.  I let the asparagus go to seed again this year without harvesting (though I was very tempted), I will add soil to the bed and plan to harvest next year.  We are moving around the front "cold bed" to the side of the house and will fill that with flowers and bushes - to make room for the deck that we hope to build this year!

We are increasing our fruit trees.  We now have 2 apple, 2 peach, 2 fig, 2 kiwi, 75+ strawberry, 3 blueberry, 3 domestic blackberry, and a thriving rhubarb which I have already harvested 2 quarts from.  We plan to add 2 pear trees to the "orchard" this year.  I am very excited about these additions.  :-)

I am sad to report that I pretty much killed all our little seedlings.  It was just too busy a time to be trying to remember to turn lights on and off and water things daily.  I have a few living still, but many, many died a sad, dry, weak death.  :-(  I haven't taken tally of seeds yet, but may need to buy some plants to make up for the loss.  I do plan to put beans in the ground soon - but we had a frost warning last night again, so won't be doing squashes or tomatoes for a bit still.  I am waiting on hubby to go get the truckload of manure for me also, so most of the beds aren't quite ready yet.

On the flower side... right now the iris and wild violets are blooming, lilac is almost done, lilies are on their way.  There is 1 bud on a rose bush and many plants that have shoots and leaves and growth.  The peonies are looking good, hosta are full and lovely, coneflowers filling in, butterfly bush getting tall.  Love this time of year!

We have sooooo many projects that need doing this year.  Work has been very busy for hubby and it is way past dark when he gets home lately... so we'll see what really gets accomplished.  I'll report back again before too long.

New plantings and baby chickies!

We are adding to our fruit and flowering trees, and adding some color to the yard while we wait to be able to plant out the veggie garden.

Ordered from Arbor Day Foundation and planted last night:
2 Golden Jubilee Peach trees
1 Fragrant Lilac
2 Blue Hydrangea bushes
4 Bar Harbor Junipers
1 Orange Azalea
1 Red Maple Tree (free)
2 Forsythias (free)

I also purchased from Lowe's yesterday:
2 blueberry bushes
2 fig trees

We also dug up lots of baby forsythia bushes from under our bush at the corner of the house, so many in fact that we were able to line the back of the house with bushes - that will be pretty next spring!

We received our order of baby chicks yesterday also.  We ordered 25 hens (just a mix of brown egg layers) and they sent a free exotic chick also.  They are chirping away from their cage in the laundry room.  We need to work on adding to the chicken house and making an additional run for them.  They will be inside for a few weeks though.

Spring walk around the yard

We noticed the below pictured items when we walked around the yard with the camera today.  We also saw that the lilies and tulips are popping up, the foxglove is growing, strawberry plants are getting new leaves (bed needs repaired), 5 of the 8 bushes we transplanted last fall have new growth, the parsley in the herb bed is growing, the sage is growing again, and there is some kale in the "cold bed" that is growing again!  There is lots of chicken and rabbit fertilizer to fill the beds with.  I need to plan how to move a couple of the beds from the large garden to the small garden and get the small garden fenced in.  We still haven't recovered the greenhouse, that and cleaning the chicken house and adding another run for the new chicks are a priority.

Iris shoot

Forsythia buds

Rhubarb new leaves

Blackberry bush new leaves (blurry)

Garden update

Well, the gardens have mostly been tended by my children the last month or so as we have been finishing a remodel in the house and busy with company visiting. I went out this evening to get a peek at how things were doing. It is a jungle in there! The spacing of the plants is working fine, hardly any weeds and things are growing beautifully! It is incredible how tall the corn and tomatoes and pole beans are, like 10-12' each! The raised beds and close planting prescribed in the square foot gardening method have worked out wonderfully - we have harvested tomatoes, beans, swiss chard, zucchini, cucumber, and peas so far - that is the good news. :-)

The bad news is that I didn't follow directions very well on how far apart to put the *beds* - as in there is NO walking room in there between the beds since the plants have grown SO much! It is hard to imagine when you are planting little seeds that things will grow THAT much, but they have and it's wonderful - but now it's difficult to get around in there. Another difficulty has been the tomato stakes - I had put off getting stakes and wanted to find a cheap solution, just ended up using long sticks - which have rotted and broken and were not tall enough (who knew 10-12' would be needed?) - so the tomatoes are everywhere, literally.

When I went in this evening for the first time in several weeks, it looked like a herd of elephants had tried to squeeze through. The kids had told me that they knocked over the pole bean teepee trying to reach ones off the very top, I had imagined it leaning, but it was actually on the ground and after trying unsuccessfully to right it - I just pulled them all up. I now have a free bed to plant a fast-grower or a fall crop. It also gives more room to get to the bush beans and the tomatoes. I also harvested the rest of the chard and cut most of the dill to hang and dry. I found a cauliflower! I had almost given up on that, so was happy to discover it. The carrots are getting big and the corn is getting close to harvest.

The small garden has been doing fine, even without us ever getting that fence up. There are a couple large pumpkins growing, and I found a little yellow squash started. The watermelon plants are kinda small still, but starting to flower. I should add some fertilizer to all of those beds. The potatoes look great and I did end up getting about 10 small asparagus sprouts after all.

In the cold bed, the cabbage is finally starting to form heads and there is a small broccoli on the plant that is remaining. There are also a couple of lettuce heads that I had planted later that are getting bigger and haven't bolted (yet!).

The strawberries are doing wonderfully! They actually have put runners out all over the place and I need to go cut them so they can grow good roots and not spread quite yet. I look forward to yummy strawberries next year!

Weeds have taken over much of the flower beds, but we did get some lovely blooms. We have been struggling with a puppy who likes to roll on plants and has flattened several things - even eaten some rose buds! The herb bed has not had much attention this year at all, but the oregano and sage in the main garden has done well and I may try to move some of that to the herb bed to see if it will come again next year. I hope to plant some more bulbs in the fall and increase some of the flowering time and beauty toward the front/driveway side of the house next year.

The bugs have been a nuisance at best. The hornworms and squash bugs being the worst so far. Japanese beetles have not been as bad as previous years. I will post later the details of the sprays/powders I have found helpful.

So, that's a summary report. Will get more pics and report back on harvest and storage later.

Fruits

Blackberries are forming - can't wait to pick all the wild ones on our property. The rhubarb has recovered well from the run-in with the mower. I don't think that the male kiwi did though, which is a shame since it wasn't cheap! The strawberries are doing great. I have been faithfully pinching the blooms and also snipping the runners that they have put out. I only let a couple be so they could fill in spots where plants had died or not come up.

"Back of house" plant pics

These are the things that are planted behind our house. This is a fairly neglected area, it is pretty sloped but I hope to plant more there in the future. It gets good afternoon sun and isn't horrid soil.

Kiwi vine that had been growing for several years. I pruned this way back in late winter and it seems to have liked it. I need to get back there and train it up an arbor, similar to a grape vine. Need to build an arbor first though!

This is the female kiwi vine that I planted for the other side of the (yet to be built) arbor. I know this one is female.

This is the male kiwi vine. It is evidently rather pretty when it blooms. I am hoping that the other two are females. It takes about 5 years until they have matured and bloom and you must have a male and a female in order to get fruit. The fruit on these cold-hardy ones is smaller and smooth (not hairy). I look forward to one day enjoying them!

This is the rhubarb. It was doing quite well - until Tom mowed it down. I showed him where it was but had not marked it and the grass had gotten kinda high and it was getting dark when he was mowing. Oh well, I think it will survive and I put brick around it for now. I am looking forward to a good harvest next year if not this one!

"Small Garden" Tour

This is the "small garden". We have not yet gotten the fence around this one, hopefully tomorrow. I am hoping to add 2 blueberry bushes soon to the center of this garden, and the vines should fill it up and climb the fence once it is there.

This is the L-shaped bed that has now been planted with (closest to farthest) 9 yellow crookneck squash, 4 sugar baby watermelon, 4 moon and stars watermelon, 6 amish muskmelon, 4 sugar pie pumpkin and 2 big max pumpkin. The wood you see sticking up behind is the potato bed.

Domestic blackberry, the largest of the three and is in the corner nearest the L-bed.

Second largest, in center of fence wall-to-be.

Smallest of the domestic blackberries, in corner near asparagus bed.

I didn't get a pic of the asparagus bed, at the end near the gate -
it is a long, deep bed that is showing no signs of asparagus yet! :(

This is the potato bed. There are about 7 vines coming up, I am going to add straw as they grow and hopefully be able to easily harvest the potatoes at the end of the season. I have never grown potatoes before, but hopefully this above-ground method works!

Next time there should be a fence and hopefully blueberry bushes, and some weeding done.

Strawberries

Update on the strawberries. Here is a better picture of my homemade, redneck "pyramid" planter. :-) It is working just fine!

The left side does seem to get a bit more shade than I expected now that the trees have leafed out, so the right side plants are larger... not sure what to do about that, we'll wait it out and see. We are picking lots of blooms off so that the plants are well established for berries next summer!

Buds and Blooms

We have been working constantly on getting things settled in the gardens this spring.  The main garden beds are all built and filled with good soil.  It's still been a bit too cold at night to put the tomatoes in and I really want the fence up before I do much more.  That should happen this Saturday.

I have a bed made for the potatoes, but need to do ones for the asparagus, squashes and melons still.  Also need to build an arbor for the kiwi, put a trellis up for the peas, build the chicken run, plant all the beds and the herb bed and some flowers, I also desperately need to weed the flower beds and prune some of the bushes.

The lilac, dogwood, hyacinth, wild violets and tulips are blooming.  There are buds on the roses, irises, and peonies.  The strawberries are doing great!  The thornless blackberries are coming right up, they usually do well but then the deer eat them down - this year we will be fencing them in.  The wild blackberries are everywhere as usual.  The trees have new leaves unfolding and the ferns are beginning to unfurl.  I am considering adding a miniature apple tree to the center of the small garden.

I will add some more pics from my walk around the garden today.

Strawberry beds, Greenhouse and Chickies

The promised pics...

Planted - 75 strawberries!

Can hardly wait to enjoy them (next year)!