Garden Tour 2017

This is mostly for my garden-loving mom and anyone else who enjoys this sort of thing. The garden is mostly in! I'll tell you what . . . two weekends ago, I was seriously concerned. We had a weed jungle on our hands. But after a long day in the cold and rain, Doug and I managed to mostly tame it. We are ever so grateful for black plastic and straw (as you can see from the garden!). Being a busy young family, we really don't have hours a day to be pulling weeds. So we try to live up to the motto "work smarter, not harder" when it comes to the garden.

So here's how I usually start thinking things through. I get out my journal from last year to remember
where I had placed things last year. To prevent disease, you want to try to move things around from year to year.
I also always take a look at the companion planting chart on Wikipedia. Some things just shouldn't be planted beside each other.

We have a couple new things in the garden this year. So we should have a few happy suprises this summer.

Here's what we have this year. I have done a bit more since I took this picture. The large black plastic areas are for our crawling plants to that like to spread out. I finally just ran across something this year that I never knew before. Aha! You shouldn't mulch the sqaush familes with straw! The eggs for the squash beetles camp out in the straw!! Oh my goodness. Big "aha" moment. So here's to hoping that knowledge will help us out this year.

Okay, so in the front large plastic area.  Right at the front two cucumber hills and the two back hills are zucchini.
The back large plastic area is the squash. Two pumpkin in the far back., spaghetti squash, delicata squash, and another one that I can't remember the name right now. The family-owned, Wisconsin-based seed company that we buy our seeds from always sends a free packet of something, so we are going to try the squash they sent us. They are a fabulous company by the way, I  highly recommend them!!

Front part of the garden. 

This first box is full of carrots. It is a bit spotty in spots, so I need to stick some more seeds in.
The second box is Nutmeg's. She's got carrots and some flower seeds in there.

Left to right we have cilantro, kale, russian kale, spinach, lettuce. 

Potatoes. They continue to the back of the garden. 

Two broccoli, two brociflower. The rest of the row are more carrots, some beets, and more garlic.
I've never tried beets before but the seed company sent us a packets of beets, so I'll give it a whirl.
We actually could use some beets; our family has a borsch recipe that we LOVE to eat in the wintertime.
It would be great to eat our borsch with our own beets. 

Garlic. Oh, how we love our garlic!!

The plant at the front of this row is called a ground cherry. The farmer we bought this from convinced me to find a place for this one. He says that the kids love it. I don't doubt that they will. I've tasted one myself at the farmer's market. It creeps along the ground. The fruit is small, round, juicy, and is packaged inside a papery covering that you peel off. We bought our plants from a new-to-us farmer couple this year. They are the parents of one of the girls that swam with Nutmeg at her swim clinic this spring. I love our small town!

The rest of the row are peppers.  One jalapeno, a couple bell peppers, a "zingy" one, and a few small lunchbox-type peppers.
Fun times! 

Eight tomato plants this year. A colorful, fun variety. I've only got one basil in there; I need to get in another.
Behind the tomatoes are a half a row of beans. 

Onions. We love our onions as well!! Can't wait to cook em! 

Peas

More potatoes. Two eggplants, parsley, more cilantro, and a spot for one more thing. 

Eggplants


Well, that's a wrap.  We'll check in a little later in the summer. Wish us well in keeping up with those weeds!!