2014 Gardens: New fence, and plantings

Vegetable garden

My husband was kind enough to tear down the deer fence that served as my garden's perimeter for two years at the end of last season;  he also rotatilled enough ground to more than double the size of my gardening space. Once spring was upon us, he designed and bought supplies for the new fence.

I managed to remove a fraction of the countless maple seeds that sprouted in my raised bed, with the help of my oldest son and the girl next door.

The posts are up! Construction is underway; I was so excited to have a solid, new fence, and the boys were equally enthralled! I was already dreaming of the number of climbing plants I could sow along the perimeter!

The fence is complete!!

Enter Mother's Day: I picked up vegetable plants at the Royal Oak in Bloom market after a lovely breakfast at Cafe' Muse (my favorite). Michael chose the flat of petunias as my mother's day gift :-)

A table littered with things to be planted, including the squashes and melons I started from seed.

I began planted green beans, squashes (long island cheese pumpkin, spaghetti squash, acorn squash, cucumbers and pickling cucumbers) and melons (three varieties of watermelon as well as cantaloupe) along the perimeter on Mother's Day, as well as 8 asparagus roots and 1 sweet potato plant. Today I began populating the raised bed; I planted a variety of tomatoes (roma, cherry, yellow pear, and big boy), peppers (red, orange and yellow sweet, plus banana), and cruciferous vegetables (red and green cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower). I planted Brussels sprouts along the remaining open space of the perimeter.

Voila!!

Pretty little petunias!

Fruit garden

The far side of this garden is laden with strawberry plants (all around the lilac bush). When I first started weeding this bed a few years ago, I almost plucked them all, thinking they were weeds. Thankfully I had acquired a strawberry plant amongst others from my colleague; when looking for a place to plant the strawberry, I realized my silliness. 

The strawberries are propagating nicely, and I've decided to add more fruits to this garden (amongst other edibles).

The garden "as-is" (minus some weeds); prior to adding edible plants.

This lattice here is rather lonely. I planted luffa gourd during my first growing season, and they utilized the lattice rather well. Since then, it's just been the clematis (except for some failed cukes one year), which never really flourishes. I grew up playing in and eating from a large grape arbor in my grandmother's yard, which inspired me to start some grapes here with the lattice .

This photo isn't particularly telling, but I planted 4 green zucchini, 4 sage, 1 basil, 1 blueberry, and 2 concord grapes (one on either side of the lattice). I have another grape to plant (I forget the name of it),  and plan to place it near the clematis.

More work to do
I still need to clear the remaining grass from the rest of my vegetable garden, and then get to planting seeds and other root vegetables (such as beets and onions that I bought from the market yesterday). I barely have enough room for everything!!!

2013 Garden: Some planting

I planted seeds, indoors, back on March 31st. Here's a photo of how they have progressed in the past six weeks.

Cherry tomato, sweet pepper, chili pepper, basil, and luffa gourd seedlings.

The weather finally gave me a break, and with my baby in a bouncer and toddler at his sandbox (or sometimes digging in my garden), I managed to get to work. Bits of progress over three different days yielded some success.

On May 7th I was able to pull the new weeds from the section I had weeded previously, turn the soil again, and get to planting! I planted one row of Swiss chard, nearly two rows of spinach, and a small section of kale. I had no idea that my packet of kale would contain so few seeds-- "Now I know, and knowing is half the battle...G.I. Joe!" I also managed to pull the weeds from the other half of the raised bed!

My husband doubled my garden this year by moving the fence to encase a larger area, but we don't plan on adding more raised beds until the fall.

Hence, I decided to dig up spots to permit more planting than what my existing, raised bed can accommodate. I took a shovel and dug holes around about half of the garden's perimeter, along the fence line. I removed the grass, shook out the soil, and decided I'd need a bit of topsoil and manure to prep these spots for planting.

My husband picked up topsoil and manure and dumped the bags near my garden. I finally found time on May 11th to prep the newly-dug spaces, then planted seeds for pumpkin, cantaloupe, green beans, and cucumbers.

I turned the soil in the unplanted portion of the raised bed, and planted seeds for carrots and broccoli (one packet of seeds, each), leaving space in the garden for some chili peppers and sweet peppers that are growing indoors.

Prepped.

Planted.

Of course it got down into the twenties Sunday evening/Monday morning -- I had contemplated waiting until the following weekend to plant, but instead decided to monopolize on some free time, as my husband was caring for the boys. I hope that the melon and pumpkin seeds weren't damaged. Time will tell.

As for the tomatoes and basil that I am growing indoors, I plan to transplant them to large pots that I will keep in the garden. I also intend to purchase herb plants at a sale next weekend, and a few more tomato plant varieties in a month or so from the farmer's market -- all to live in pots in my garden area.

Oh, and a rhubarb plant, given to me last fall by my manager, has come up nicely!  I planted it outside of my garden last year (near the fence), as rhubarb has few pests to worry about, and takes up quite a bit of space.

I'm looking forward to harvesting strawberries from my patch to accompany the rhubarb in a delectable pie ;). I also enjoy eating rhubarb, raw, by the stalk -- it's tart bite makes my mouth water!! As long as I keep up with the daily watering routine, I should get a fine yield of berries. I intend to freeze some, and can a little jam, too!

The greens (chard, kale and spinach) were visible on May 14th!

A little bit of progress

The boys and I spent part of the morning outside - what a gorgeous day!  I managed to clear weeds from a good portion of the garden in between keeping the baby out of the son and watching my toddler as he moseyed back and forth between his sandbox and my garden, often bringing dump trucks loaded with sand. He also kept demanding that I find more worms, as if that was going to be a problem!

Nearly half of the raised bed is now weed-free and prepped for planting. 

A view from the southeast side of the garden.

Prepping the garden

2013 will be my third growing season. I don't know all that much about gardening, but there are two things I'm pretty sure are true:

weeds = bad
earthworms = good

I keep attempting to prep the soil for this year's planting, but doing so with a two-year old and four-month old yields minimal productivity. I snuck out to my garden during the boys' synchronized naps this afternoon - thought I was pretty slick bringing the baby monitor to listen in on the little guy. But after 10-15 minutes of pulling weeds and turning soil, the monitor crapped out. It's a good thing I went back inside, because baby guy was crying (he rarely cries, and I would never leave him alone to cry - we were both pretty sad over the whole thing).

Weeds removed. Soil broken up and turned. Feels awesome!

Tool of choice. No idea what it's called, but it's awesome!

I started at the top edge of the bed and pulled the tool toward me, ripping up weeds and organic matter. I sifted through the softened soil to pull up weeds, but left behind anything that appeared to be decaying or dried out (that stuff counts as fodder for compost, right?), and then continued on to the next section.

A lot of work, a little pile of weeds.

The garden is four railroad ties long, or thirty-two feet. I think I got through about 5 feet of it. Planning to plant chili peppers, bell peppers, chard, kale, spinach, and carrots.

The husband trenched water AND electricity (though it didn't seem to be working today, hence the crying baby incident) out to my garden (SWEET!), and he extended the fence enough to accommodate three eight-by-eight raised beds (to be integrated next year).  As for this growing season, I will use the open space to plant melons, cukes, and potted tomatoes. I'll plant beans and luffas along the perimeter, allowing them to climb the fence.

banana pepper rings

i have 4 banana pepper plants in my garden this year, and they are producing nicely.  i've been able to harvest 5-10 at a time, a that's quite a bit of banana peppers all at once!  my favorite way to enjoy these veggies is to pickle them.  i have a simple recipe and method that takes very little effort, yet produces delicious pickled peppers; the recipe is adapted from a refrigerator pickle recipe shared with me by my mother in law.

ingredients

5-10 banana peppers

white vinegar (1-3 cups)

water (1-2 cups)

1-3 garlic cloves

instructions

1. remove pepper tops
2. slice the peppers
   
3. remove seeds & white flesh within the peppers (i prefer to do this after slicing, as it proves to be more efficient - a few minutes in a salad spinner, after being sliced and rinsed, helps as well).
4. place clean, sliced peppers in a gallon-sized ziplok bag, or another container.  i use a tupperware pick-a-deli and it works PERFECTLY!  i highly recommend it!!
   
5. add enough vinegar and water to cover the peppers.  a 50/50 mixture is probably ideal.  i prefer a bigger bite, and tend to go heavier on the vinegar than the water.  this recipe doesn't require a perfect science - experiment and see what your taste buds prefer!
6. add the garlic cloves - i always add 2-3.  if you love garlic less than i, perhaps use only 1 small clove.
   
7. refrigerate overnight, and they will be ready to go the next day!!!
8. they keep for weeks (1+ months) in the fridge.  if you eat them quickly, you can reuse the vinegar/water mixture for a second batch (though i usually top off batch #2 with a bit more vinegar).
9. feel free to add sea salt, a hot pepper (jalapeno or red hot chili), or anything else you might enjoy!