Irises and Almost Every Square Filled!

We've been busy! My wonderful husband built me another bed beside the house, so I can grow things that like, or at least tolerate, shade. I transplanted some of the mustard I'd started in pots on the deck and we put our cilantro in there, which will hopefully slow down the bolting process. We also got some herbs which I potted on the deck (dill, fennel, summer savory {which has the pretty tiny purple flowers!}, and tarragon), and I fear that I once again bought more tomatoes than I have space for in the garden, so two of them went into great big pots. We bought four little peanut plants too and put them in big tubs on the deck, and amazingly they're already visibly growing! Sadly I didn't get the pictures on Flickr over the weekend, but I promise to post them soon.

Every spring I find myself smiling at the sighting of daffodils dotted around our little farm and it makes me so happy to see the irises bloom. I went around and took pictures of some of them Sunday, although I didn't get any of the lavender patch that is being overrun by blackberries. I love the deep purple patch at the end of our driveway. We divided them three or four years ago and this is the first year they've really bloomed fully. They were even more dense this morning! Hopefully I'll be able to get a picture of the full blooming patch, but just in case, here are some from Saturday. The last one is my favorite! The sun made the interior of the flower glow, although I'm not sure the picture does it justice.




These two are blooming beneath the butterfly bushes so I need to move them. I don't know if you can see the full range of color in the peach bloom... peach, yellow, vibrant orange, lavender... they're gorgeous!




The last one is a Mother's Day present from my husband. We were at the greenhouse buying compost to put in another raised bed Square Foot Garden and this beauty took my breath away.


I hope everyone is having a lovely spring!

Spring Cleaning

It's spring again and after discovering how easy it is to prepare our Square Foot Gardens for spring, I'm eager to get everything planted! Yesterday we put some seeds in three of the beds, only to discover today that the dogs ran through them for some strange reason. They didn't bother them at all last year, but for some reason last night they tromped through them, so we're going to have to erect some kind of temporary fencing to deter them.

Last year I lost interest in the garden toward the end of the season and it got very little care, but somehow it still produced a wonderful harvest of tomatoes and beans, along with a handful of okra and some herbs as well. The sunflowers did wonderfully in the bed my husband built just for my flowers and it was really gratifying to see the little birds feeding on the seeds when the weather was cold and snowy. We got more snow this year than we have in the previous eleven years that we've lived here. The biggest storm dumped nineteen inches of snow! This spring is unseasonably warm so hopefully I won't lose the greens that I planted (at least the ones that survive the dogs stomping all over them!).
Here are some pictures from yesterday's cleaning and planting.






I put this Italian and Greek Oregano in last year. They were tiny plants I bought from Miller Farms and they both took over the entire square they were planted in! My husband pulled them out and divided them, then planted them in the bed in pots to stop them from completely taking over.


My son brought a cabbage plant home from school. According to the paper they sent home with it, this cabbage will grow to be bigger than my son's head! We'll see...

This little Brussel Sprout showed up beneath all of the weeds and tomato plant stalks. I'm going to let it grow as a trap plant.

I'll try to do a better job of updating my blog this year. Happy gardening!

The first greens of the season

My experiment in the pots on the deck failed because I planted too many per pot, but I moved some of the collards to the garden in the back and also planted some vates collards as well as turnips and tonight we harvested some of the greens and my husband sauteed them with garlic.  Delicious!  The depth of flavor was wonderful!  I'm so excited about our harvest this year.  I need to post some new pictures and I'll try to do so this weekend.

I hope everyone's having a lovely spring!

An update on the peas, greens, and the Square Foot Gardens

One of the pea varieties (Alaska, I think) has flowers on it today! They're so pretty when they flower. I took a couple of pictures, although I'm not sure you'll be able to see the flowers very clearly.

As you can see they're doing pretty well and I'm hopeful about getting a good harvest as long as it doesn't snap super-hot.

The greens, on the other hand, aren't doing as well. I think the problem is that I was lazy when I planted them and thinned them out too late, so the plants aren't flourishing.

I don't hold out much hope for getting a harvest from any of these this year, but it was instructive and I'll likely try again in the fall.

The Square Foot Gardens are doing great! We're slowly filling in the empty squares, although the fourth one is still empty at this point. We've added a couple of different varieties of tomatoes and the most up-to-date diagram of each garden is available on my Flickr photostream.

I didn't snap pictures of the zucchini and yellow squash in the front yard, but they're doing really well. Everything is growing like crazy, thanks to all of the rain we got! My irises are blooming and they're so beautiful, I'll try to get some pictures of them for my next post. I hope that everyone is having a wonderful spring!

Square Foot Garden Diagrams after planting this weekend

We went to the Locust Grove Farmer's Market Sunday and bought a couple of heirloom tomato plants, as well as one fairy tale eggplant plant and a patty pan squash plant. Keith grows everything he had for sale so we figured we'd try one or two and see how they grew. Here are the diagrams for the three that we have planted. #1 is fully planted at this point.

Remember, if you can't see the whole picture just click on it and you'll see it full size.

There are a few little shoots coming up from the beet seeds I put in last weekend, as well as the brussell sprouts. Jeff loves okra so I bought a few seeds to try growing it this year and I'm excited about growing Southern Peas (varieties of cow peas) because we got some at the Farmer's Market last year and they were delicious. I'll post more pictures as things develop.

I also put two lines of string between the squares of the panel of fencing in the pea garden because I read that peas that have something to climb grow better.

Pictures of the Square Foot Gardens

The first one with the weedblock beneath it

#1 and #2 from our back porch, originally uploaded by The Ungardener.

Here are the first two Square Foot Gardens, with the lattices for the other two behind them. You can see the pea fence in the background as well. Putting them together was surprisingly easy, as was mixing up the soil mixture, since we used the author's recommendation and did it on a tarp where we essentially just rolled things around until they were combined. Then we dragged the tarp to the gardens... quick and easy!

Our trailer load of supplies, most notably 60 cubic feet of vermiculite

The mixing area

I'll add pictures as things begin to grow. Right now there are only a few squares planted.

(If you can't see the whole picture just click on it)

Square Foot Gardens are officially planted!

This year we're trying out Square Foot Gardening, based on the book of that title by Mel Bartholomew.  I posted some pictures to my Flickr account of their construction through the first planting, and I'll gradually fill them in as the season progresses.  I've been snapping pictures here and there but I haven't had time to pop on and post them to this forum, with work and Cub Scouts and karate... life gets hectic this time of year!

My peas are growing, albeit slowly, but every variety I planted sprouted!  I'm so excited!  It makes my water to think of all of the wonderful peas I'll be harvesting before too much longer...  The greens came up too but they're in desperate need of thinning.  I wasn't patient enough to plant those nearly microscopic little seeds one at a time so now I need to spend some time thinning them out so that they can grow properly.  Only one variety of those didn't come up, the Fordhook Giant Swiss Chard.  I may try planting some in a square or two of a Square Foot Garden, but I haven't done so yet.

I'll try to get some of the random pictures I've taken posted this week.  I meant to trim my butterfly bushes back this weekend but I didn't get to it, so that's a project for one evening this week.  I don't want to wait too long because they're huge and I'd really like them to come in dense rather than gangly, not to mention that I fear how big the white one will end up if I don't cut it back.

Happy Spring, everyone!