Garden

The garden is almost finished! I still need to plant watermelon and the hot peppers and then I am done until it's time for the beans and fall stuff.

So what did I plant this year? Well.....

 These two beds are by the front door. One contains basil, parsley, thyme, and some carrots. The other is full of carrots and cilantro. For the record, I am not a cilantro fan, but I do like it in salsa.

The section to the right of the pavers is my perennial flower garden. I added lavender and two yarrow plants.

The two pots are rosemary and lavender that I started from seed this winter. They are growing and somehow the kids have not yet dumped the pots. It's a small miracle.

These beds are along the side of my garage. One bed is full of spinach, lettuce, and chard. The other bed is full of strawberries and spinach.










The small garden in the backyard is supposed to be full of lettuce, spinach, and chard, but the dog rolls around in it and I think the rain washed away some of the seeds since I planted it early. I'm planning to use the entire area for garlic this fall. I do have quite a bit of chard and spinach up and that makes me happy.

I have another small garden for invasive and annoying perennials. It's full of spearmint, lemon balm, oregano, and I added cone flower this year.

This is a terrible picture, but we added four potato growing thingys this year. As soon as the potatoes grow out of the soil, you add another layer of wood and more soil. One thingy should grow something like 100 lbs of potatoes. We're growing Yukon golds since they're expensive and delicious. I have no idea where I will store 400 lbs of potatoes, but I don't need to think about that just yet.










My big garden was a flop last year. It was so full of weeds that I couldn't keep up. We covered everything with black plastic for about a month and a half and it did wonders for the garden. I have planted 59 tomatoes, most of which I started from seed in January, 15 sweet peppers, three or four butternut squashes, muskmelon, cantaloupe, and a couple of pumpkins. I also planted lots of sugar snap peas in an attempt to be able to put some in the freezer for later. I had one more weedy section that I covered with black plastic and that's where I'll plant the jalapeno and chili peppers. I'll stick the watermelon in somewhere with the rest of the melon.

I'm extremely happy with everything we've done this spring. My aronia bushes all have leaves, my service berry trees have leaves, and all of my fruit trees, with the exception of the peaches, flowered. The only thing left to do is add mulch around the aronia bushes and I think we're doing that this weekend. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we have a good growing season and will have a lot of tasty, fresh food to eat soon. I love fresh salads.