Last summer, when we moved in with my mother-in-law, we started planning a garden for her backyard. We thought about what veggies we wanted, what it should look like, and before it got too cold last winter we laid brick around a piece of dirt in her backyard.. and waited..
Now that summer is here and my mil, who I will refer to as Kat since, well, that is her name, has free time we are out in the garden every morning. Kat is up before the dawn and is out there by 6am.. me, well, I try to get there as soon as I can, coffee in hand.
As this project is unfolding we are realizing we have planned a HUGE garden, and when we stop to think of what we've done we either laugh or shudder in horror. For example, we have planted about 30 pumpkin seeds. IF they were to all survive and thrive we would have 30 pumpkin vines, which produce multiple pumpkins per vine. You do the math. What were we thinking??
If I could make a little map for you all, I would, but I can't so I will give you a brief summary of what we've planted so far and hopefully I can update nearly everyday. If I can make it to the computer in the afternoon after all this manual labor...
We have planted:
- 3 types of carrots (which is more of an experiment than anything, they are supposed to be very difficult to grow).
- Squash, lots and lots of squash. Even decorative gourds because I LOVE them.
- Onions
- Broccoli
- Lettuce
- 6+ tomato plants
- 12 strawberry plants
- Cucumbers
- BEANS!
- Beets (do I even like beets??)
- Herbs!! Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme (which died, but I don't like thyme anyway), and basil. Mmm.. oh, and oregano.
Here is Kat, and yep, that's Mo laying in the grass. He's having just as much fun as we are in the early morning fresh air. This was taken a couple days ago. Take note of the patch of dirt behind Kat right next to the shed. You'll be seeing more of that in days to come.
You can see the tomatoes over to the left and the strawberry patch is right next to them. These rows are where the beans, beets, cucumbers and lettuce are. We started this little stone path this morning, too.
This is the other half, minus a bit. You can see the herbs growing away.
See! Herbs! This was taken this morning before we went to the nursery and purchased some more. Yes, I was out there planting at 1pm while Moses napped. No, I don't think I'll be doing that again.
Tomatoes! Kat planted marigolds around them because, well, I don't know why.. but Kat said the marigolds help the tomatoes.. or something.
Our strawberry patch. I planted them this afternoon, so you'll just have to wait to see them until tomorrow.
Here is that patch of dirt I was talking about. I weeded it this morning and then started working some magic, or something, this afternoon. We'll see what it develops into!
And here is sweet Moses, playing away!
I have a feeling this won't be the first time I'll be cleaning dirt out my son's clothes!
Until tomorrow!!
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And the garden! Things are really happening out there!
Look at these squash!
More squash..
Even more!
There is a tomato plant in the middle and decorative gourds growing around it.
Broccoli!
Lettuce! I definitely planted these too close together. Some of them have been transplanted to another section of the garden. Live and learn!
Beans, beans, beets, beans, beans, beans ..
Beets and herbs!
There are 3 rows of carrots. I have no idea how so many are growing together. I was really careful when I was laying the seeds! You can really see the weed issure we're fighting in this photo.
This area was cleared for transplants. We put down a bunch of compost, and well.. just look..
See all of those plants growing? I think I must have put cantaloupe seeds into the compost. Some sort of gourd is growing everywhere we put compost! Ugh!
This is a blueberry bush, and a couple of raspberry bushes in the distance. We also transplanted some of the beans up here and on the tier above it we transplanted some more squash.
More tomatoes! I really like having the marigolds growing with them. Pretty.
We're going to have tomatoes galore!
And a word about compost. We recently moved ours to allow for more room for transplants. We simply purchased a trash can, drilled holes in the sides and dug a big hole in the ground for it. We started last October sometime so we would have some good compost this spring. We put lots of leaves in the with things we saved from the kitchen and it has worked great so far! Putting it in the ground during the winter allowed the compost to do its thing during the cold. It is recommended to put blood, bone, or fish meal in the help with the decomposition.. we opted to not do that and still had great results!
