2008 Summer Garden Tour

One of the best things about the house we are renting is the garden. Our landlords have a garden spot that they've been composting for years and years, as well as grape vines, raspberry bushes, and strawberry plants. Adam and I share an appetite for gardening that was well satiated this year. We did some work, but mostly we just watched the garden day after day as it miraculously transformed itself from a big dirt box to a lush green garden.

 

Raspberries--kids loved eating these.

 

View of the grapes leaves and "baby" grapes. The grape vines are prolific and find their way across the fence and into the neighbors pine tree. 

We were delighted to find some celery plants growing in the garden.

Made some pickles from our cucumbers.

Another pleasant surprise--watermelon. Great look, little flavor.

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Adam always wants to have fresh herbs, so we planted basil and cilantro.

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We planted 5 or so tomato plants. 

Our twin pumpkins.

 

The Andersen family gave us four pumpkin plants. We put them in and they soon outgrew their garden corner and spread to cover the lawn. We harvested 6 pumpkins; we'll be carving them tonight.

Most of our tomato plants spontaneously came up throughout the garden. Adam transplanted t welcome volunteers to the spot on the left corner of this photo. Bush beans are pictured on the right corner of this photo.

 Picked plenty of beans that are now in the freezer.

The Kids' Garden

Emily and Michael scattered a lot of sunshine, seeds, and water  in this corner of the garden. Lots of stuff came up, mostly volunteers.

This beautiful plant (I'm not even sure what it's called) was from a seed that Emily planted during a sunbeam class : )

We'll be moving next summer, so we may not have a garden. We'll really miss it, but for now we're ready for the break this winter will provide. Until then, we still have green grapes to turn into slime juice, and a lot of green tomatoes that we need to can as soon as they decide to turn red.

Growing Up

After looking at our previous garden post, I thought an update was needed. It's growing up! This picture is 3 weeks old, so most of the lettuce has been eaten, but the cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, and carrots are getting taller. Pepper plants aren't doing so good, probably because Mikey, Emily, and their friend Tanner have each taken a turn pulling the pepper plants up by thier roots. I just replant the poor things and hope for the best. I can't give up on them yet.

The Dirt Box

This is our dirt box. We've had it for almost a week.

Adam filled it with Nature's Best Soil from the local forest products supply place. In addition to other landsape products, they have bins of soil from which you take what you need and pay a low price for it by the bucket or cubic yard. Adam paid for 15 five-gallon buckets.

I have filled the dirt box with plants/seeds for tomatos, cucumbers, peppers, cilantro, romaine lettuce, carrots, bush beans, and mixed salad greens. We tried a few different veggies to see what we end up harvesting and liking.

Adam built a conduit frame with twine for the vine plants to climb. The kids absolutely love the dirt box and want to dig in it all the time. The biggest garden pest so far is Michael. He doesn't try to eat the plants, just the dirt. We really have to keep an eye on him.

The other day, Emily was digging a nice little hole in the corner of the dirt box. Before I could "assist" her, she pulled a lettuce plant, roots and all, from it's store container, then placed it in the hole she'd dug. For all we know, we couldn't have done it any better than she did.

Vegetables, anyone?

Our back yard is about 18' by 18' and covered with bark/gravel stuff unfit for a garden. This evening we are going to fill a raised garden bed (4'x4') with about 12 cu. ft. of soil. My sister, Elsa, mentioned that we should look up stuff on Square Foot Gardening, and I think it will work well considering our backyard "conditions". We will divide the garden into 16 squares, then plant within those squares.

What veggies should we plant? We're planning to transplant tomato plants, but I don't know which variety. Also, maybe bean poles because they are more space efficient than bush beans. Other considerations--peppers, onions, romaine lettuce, carrots. Any tips on keeping out pests and such? I'm going the nursery down the road to find out more about local gardening, but I just wanted to throw this out there to see what anyone else has learned from past/present gardening endeavors.