Thursday, June 16, 2011

This year's garden

"When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant." -Author Unknown

So true!

We spent part of the morning weeding (a hateful chore when referring to the front flower beds), checking on the plants and trying to keep the zuchinni from overtaking the entire bed it's planted in.

In the bed we have along the right side of the back of our house(we had zuchinni there last year), we have okra and a couple of tomatoes (which I forgot to put the tower around this morning - argh). The sage is to the left, with one of my pinapple sage just beyond that (out of the picture). I have several other pinapple sage in the front flower bed. I didn't bother with pictures of the entire corner bed, because with execption of the holly hock, everything else is just comming up - that bed doesn't get a whole lot of sun.
On this side of the deck we have asian cukes, another tomato and some sunflowers.
Working our way around the back, we have chives (far right - which you can't really see although they are coming up), peppers, and another variety of cuke.
Down the rest of the length we have beans.
On the corner we have the parsley that is in flower. It's huge - as you can tell since it's taller than T.Lynn. We couldn't get a picture of the activity, but it seems like the whole thing is constantly in motion with the different insects that are always around it, pollinating it for us. Anyone for parsley seed? It looks like we'll have plenty.
Then there's the lemon balm.
T.Lynn again helps with understanding how big this things is. Almost as tall as she is, it's recently started flowering.
We put in two more raised beds this year. This one has herbs, tomatoes, carrots, and peppers, though the tomatoes keep you from seeing some of it. I just love those compact basils. I like the intensity of their flavor, and besides, they're cute. T.Lynn is partially hiding the oregano, which is doing much better this year.
The other bed has zuchinni...
...and more peppers and tomatoes.
We had to pull the zuchinni back from the peppers. I told you they were taking over.
I know. It seems like a lot of pepers and tomatoes, but there were several different types of each that we planted, and I wanted to raise more tomatoes this year, in the hope that I wouldn't have to buy quite so many for what we plan on canning. I get a good price for them, but still, a dollar fifty for a packet of seeds is even cheaper.
After much debate, we decided to use concrete block to form our beds this year. One reason is because the concrete won't eventually rot like untreated wood will. We decided to try planting a few things in the openings just to see how that would go. When researching it, we found mixed reviews on how well things grow in the openings. These dwarf marigolds seem to be doing well.
As is the elfin thyme.
Some of the other stuff is not doing so well, or didn't come up at all, so I would say that it just depends on what you plant in them. I've heard of putting alpine strawberries in them and we may try that next year.

I will have to try and get a bit earlier start next year, especially on my peppers. One variety in particular has been especially slow growing and I wish I had started it much sooner. We also have one pepper and a patio tomato, along with some rosemary growing in pots on the deck.

"One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides." - W.E. Jones

I'm feeling that now. The patio tomato has several green tomatoes on it, some of them already getting big. Several more tomatoes have blooms and the zuchinni is just starting to form flowers. Yummm!! I can hardly wait!
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