Pictures!

Newly harvested, it's been replanted with rampicante squash, two tomatoes, poona kheera cucumber, and five little corn plants that I got from a nice lady on the Square Foot Gardening Forum. She also gave me thyme, sage, and chives!

Of the greens we harvested, my favorite (and least bug-damaged) was Southern Giant Mustard. The Tendergreen Mustard was all but destroyed and I'm not going to plant turnip greens again, since I like the other greens so much more. I left the kale and my son's giant cabbage, as well as the volunteer green that I haven't been able to identify.

You can also see two new frames in the background!



This bed contains bush beans and four cherry tomato plants, which have already set fruit.



The pole beans survived the beetles and are reaching for the sky! I hope to build an overhead trellis for them next year.


This bed is planted with oregano, parsley, basil, tomatillos, and squash.


This bed has a variety of types of sunflowers, as well as three cucumbers, which is why there's a trellis at one end of the bed.


We have 16 different tomatoes planted in this bed, many of which are already producing! I can't wait for the first one to ripen.


The most recent addition, this bed was built for some record-length carrot seeds that were generously shared by a friend on the Square Foot Gardening forum.


Here's an overview of the garden area.


This bed alongside our house was added in May, and contains cilantro, malibar spinach, radishes, bull's blood beets, mustard greens, chervil, and a tall, happy dill plant. Hopefully the shade of the house will keep the mustard safe for a little while longer. I don't know what I'll replace it with.

A Wonderful Holiday Weekend

We had a wonderful weekend! The weather was beautiful and we spent a lot of quality family time working on the garden, harvesting greens and putting in my son's carrot bed. It's 2x2 and almost 18 inches deep, to hold the seeds of a record setting length carrot a nice person from the Square Foot Gardening forum sent to my son. He's so excited about growing them and having his own bed! I planted radishes in the bed as well, since Carrots Love Tomatoes recommended doing so.

I also took a road trip and met another forum member, and she sent me home with lots of plants! I took her some borage to plant with her tomatoes, and she sent me home with english thyme, sage, a Poona Kheera cucumber, a Zucchino Rampicante squash, five Country Gentleman Sweet Corn plants, two mystery peppers (she's not sure if they're the sweet variety or the hot one!) and two more tomatoes! I planted them in the newly harvested greens box and I look forward to enjoying her generous gifts. It was great to meet someone else who has caught the SFG bug!

She also recommended a great little place called DeBaggio's Herb Farm. I could have spent hours exploring that place! I can get a bit OCD about acquiring herb varieties so I came home with banana mint (I'm still searching for ginger mint!), anise hyssop, and a horseradish plant for my husband. We tried to plant a root of horseradish but it didn't grow, unlike his beloved rhubarb, which he mentions whenever we walk by its little green leaves.

My husband recently gifted me with a new book called Your Backyard Herb Garden that's chock full of great information about herbs, including how to grow them, how to propagate them, and how to use them. I love browsing through its beautiful pages, even if I fear that it will lead to my deck becoming overrun with herbs! The herb farm had quite a few of the herbs I'm missing, so a return visit is likely. I'm hoping to put in a wheel herb garden, but that's not a project for this year.

I snapped some pictures of the gardens, the deck, and the tires I use as planters, which I'll post as soon as I find the card reader. I swear I need to put a homing device on that little gadget!

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday weekend.