Thursday, May 19, 2016

Our garden: so far, so good

We got a relatively early start on our garden this year, thanks to record-breaking heat. Rick and Brian got our plot weeded and tilled, and by May 1st we had lettuce starts and Yukon Gold potatoes in the ground. On May 8, we planted snap peas, onion sets, and carrots (I used my Kerrits seeds once I found the fine print that said they are Nantes, my favorite variety). On Wednesday afternoon, to take advantage of the wet forecast, I planted the rest of the seeds we had on hand: saved Royal Burgundy bush beans, White Egg Turnips, Marketmore 98 cucumbers, and saved Delicata squash. The minimum still to acquire and plant: zucchini seeds, tomato starts, pepper starts, basil starts, and eggplant starts. I'd like to do that on Sunday, but we'll see.

I labeled a panoramic photo to help me remember what went where (oops; the onions are between the peas and beans):
Peas are up!
The following photo was taken from the opposite corner, showing the garden's position relative to our house. The photo after that was taken from our front door.
Yes, our garden is that little pocket-sized space tucked amidst the trees.
As you can see, the garden's location is far from ideal, surrounded by trees we are unwilling to remove, which have gotten considerably bigger since we chose this space many years ago. On top of that, Rick has put in more and more berries and grapes (on the left, behind the ornamental cherry and oak trees), leaving less room for annuals. If I had my druthers, I'd let him take over that whole space for his "babies" and move the vegetable garden to a more open spot with all-day sun (in raised beds!), but I'd need to find a whole lotta help – or money to hire someone....

Still, the garden as it stands does provide food for our table. I've been harvesting rhubarb for weeks, and yesterday I got my first taste of these:
Thankful for what we have at . . .


6 comments:

Leigh said...

Everything looks great Michelle. I just hope you get the right rainfall to go with that heat! I like the idea of labeling a panoramic photo. I always have trouble remember what's where until it grows up. I always seem to lose my little garden map.

Michelle said...

Thank-you, Leigh. I have the same trouble, which inspired the photo! I added more yesterday, so I need to take a new photo. It will be a better system for remembering which tomato varieties are which – so I can remember which ones do best in this tomato-challenging climate. (We usually get cool nights, and tomatoes like warm ones.)

LannieK said...

Looks great to me! Our garden is similar ~ in the trees. We are at 7500', so most of it is in a large hoop house. And I start a lot of little guys in the house. Your strawberries look wonderful! We just planted 70 Ft Larimie. Planted four rhubarb plants last spring. So... this time next year we'll have to have a bake off ~ strawberry-rhubarb pie :-) Can't wait!
Happy gardening!

Mama Pea said...

We have the same problem with tomatoes . . . cool nights which they just don't like. (But those kind of nights are lovely for us humans after hot days, aren't they?)

As soon as the crew of twelve (hahahohohoheeheeha!) gets done working here, I'll send them your way and you can have them work on your raised garden beds for you. ;o}

Fun seeing the pictures.

thecrazysheeplady said...

Your yard is beautiful. I don't have anything planted yet. We were super hot in April so I gave up starting lettuce, but as cool as May has been, we'd have had a bumper crop.

Maggie said...

Wow you have been busy! Great idea to label the panoramic photo...once those seeds are in its always hard to remember what's where!