We finally finished getting all of our plants in the ground yesterday. It is quite late in the season, but we are doing the best we can considering we are not moved in yet. My mother in law, who has a master gardener certification, started all of our plants in her greenhouse. Since this is our first year and so many things are going on at once, we hoping for the best.
Our garden space is a 25x35 plot surrounded by the most adorable white picket fence. The fence comes in handy to keep the little children and critters from romping through. The previous owners gardened organically so the soil is really wonderful. The plot runs north and south with a path down the middle. The beds are on the east and west side of the path. There are seven beds on each side. The center of the garden is a lovely sage bush that was left from the previous owner. Around the sage bush we sank clay drainage tiles and planted chives in them.
The beds to the right are filled with lettuces, cabbage, collards, watermelon, cantaloupe, potatoes, onions, and zucchini. We put the spinach out too late and it was very unhappy, so I scraped it. In it's place I will set out a few cukes. We have harvested enough lettuces for one salad this year!
The beds to the left contain sweet banana peppers, many, many variates of tomatoes, including ten Roma,(wonderful for sauces and salsas!) Mortgage Lifters (which claim to produce 3-6 pounders!) Celebrities, and a mysterious plant that was passed on to us called "Fireball"(?). We also planted eight jalapeno plants. The last bed on this side houses some culinary herbs that I really wanted this year, including globe basil, cinnamon basil, and bush basil. I also set out a few cilantro. I don't believe this will be where I have the herb garden in the future, but for now it will do.
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| Tomatoes and Peppers |
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| Herbs - mostly Basil! |
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| Grandma Resting! |
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| Isaac Working |
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All around the garden we planted various zinnias and nasturtium. There are also many sunflowers cropping up. (I hear the previous gardener had a love of sunflowers!) I have plans for more of them along the end of the path. I am looking forward to fresh cut zinnias in the center of our dinner table! My dad paid us a visit while we were working and suggested a path of beans along the outside of the garden fence - I love this idea and plan on doing it this week.
It's not perfect, but it's a start. We are learning as we go and we are all very excited! Look for more posts showing our progress! Thanks for visiting!
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| Abby Joan! |
