Garden Tour

Mary, Mary quite contrary
How does your garden grow?


Hi There!
Well, I'm not Mary.
Oh, God forbid that I should be contrary (eeks, I hope not)
But here's how my garden grows. . .
Happily!

We are so very pleased this year with our garden. I mean we have been from the get-go when we moved here to be blessed with so much space. We still love living in the country. It is wonderful to have all this space to dream about what is possible. Ha!  But don't get me wrong, tis isn't easy to make dreams come true either. We definitely are a busy family of six. We are still short on the time, money, and motivation to work this property into ship-shape condition. We certainly aren't manicured around these parts, that's for sure!! But, little by little I hope and expect we'll make it a little more easy on the eye as time goes on.

Anywho, the garden!!  As you might remember we have struggled with the tyranny of the weed jungle! I was pregnant the first summer here and a new baby the second year. We got the seeds in the ground, tried to weed when we could but yeeow, the weeds! It was overwhelming. The kids were starting to not like the garden anymore. I refused to let it go. We have the blessing of living out here in the country, I had to find a way. This spring I searched around on the internet, looking for a feasible plan. We ended up meshing the plans from two different blogs. We invested in a pile of compost/dirt and a truckload of straw. We followed our plan and crossed our fingers. It is working!! Wahoo!! Granted, we have far to go in the gardening world but we've made some excellent progress this year. We can do this!!

Here's a run-down of what we did. Doug mowed down the garden for last year. I went to Farm and Fleet and bought several large BLACK plastic sheets. They must be black. Clear is like a greenhouse for weeds. I laid out the plastic and held them down with rocks. A few weeks later the weeds were DEAD! Oh yeah baby!

In the meantime, we found a bit of cedar lumber at the Habitat for Humanity Restore. Doug built three raised beds in the garden. One tiny one for Basil. We plan to build the other kids ones as well when we find more cedar. And two larger ones for me. We plan to build more beds as time goes on. I am anxious to build a bed specifically for garlic. Yes, bring it on!

Then our task was to build raised rows. You can read more about raised rows on the blog "Old World Garden Farms."  I LOVE this blog!!  I have learned so much there!

So here's what we did. We left the black plastic. Now, I'm really questioning this one. I'm not sure we should leave it down always. It kills all the weeds but I'm thinking it may be killing the happy life in there two. Helpful worms and such. But anyhow, we have left it down for now. Really you are supposed to pull it up and put straw in the pathways. So we cut out strips abut 12-18 inches wide for the rows. We laid down newspaper, soaked it with water, and then laid down rows of straw on top of that. The straw is essentially what lifts up the soil into a raised row. Then we laid down dirt/compost over that. We planted in the rows and as our plants have emerged I've been mulching them with more straw. We don't have trees in our yard or I'd used leaves as a mulch too. It's been wonderful!! The weeds in our garden are quite manageable. I try to have the kids go out to the garden with me every day to pull weeds for 5 minutes. Yes, 5 minutes! Of course, even that's sketchy because a certain little toddler runs over all the plants. I don't even allow him out there anymore. Maybe next year!

Now we didn't do the entire garden. There is one section on the side by the potatoes that that we didn't raised a row in and a large section in the back as well. The weeds definitely try to creep in on all the sides. The garden IS a fruitful little island in the middle of a huge weed jungle. Someday. But for now I have Doug weed-wack all that so that it doesn't encroach on the garden. I'm thinking we'll build a few beds next year in the back section and along the left side we'll perhaps try some potato crates one of these years. This fall at the top of my "Honey Do" list will be to build a composting bin. This is essential. The compost is what will help our plants grow big and plentiful!

Alrighty for some pics!! It was shadowy out there this morning, so my pictures aren't ideal.

We have some reading to do about roses bushes too.

The pears are back! 

The cherry tree is taking off this year! Yay! Mace has been snatching them and they are still sour. Silly boy!

Some herbs close to the house so that I can just run out and grab some when I'm cooking.

We have plenty of lettuce! If you were our neighbor, I'd tell you to come over and cut some.

peas

Basil's little plot. Basil and I planted chives but they never came up. :(

carrots, lettuce, spinach, kale, onions. Next year all our onions will go in a raised bed. 

Happy potatoes. We have about one fourth the amount of potatoes planted this year as last year. Next year we'll do more for sure. 

The broccoli is so small still. I had to replant them because the bunnies ate all the other ones before we go the fencing up.

Two eggplants, bush beans, and pole beans. Still crossing our fingers that this trellis will work. They don't
seem to be climbing yet. 

I took off the plastic here and started putting straw down. I may do more. Here are the pumpkin and acorn squash plants.

peppers. Grow babies, grow! We want salsa!

Tomatoes

We've got some already! Yay!

Peter Piper picked a pack of PURPLE peppers.

Cucumber and zucchini

Here it is.

And our other little garden . . .