Filling out the garden

Our small raised bed garden

This past weekend we planted most of the garden space. We have been harvesting radishes almost daily, but the garden has not produced anything else yet. The spinach and lettuce didn’t do very well this year. We didn’t plant much and something ate the tender little tops once or twice which didn’t help. Three of the six lettuce plants that I bought at the store died suddenly. They were chewed off or rotted right at ground level. The beets didn’t germinate very well, but the few that did have finally started to grow a little bit. We might end up with 10 beets. There were also two small eggplant plants that had the tops eaten down. The first plant before I put up a two foot fence and the second one after I put up the fence. Something seemed to have climbed over the fence, pulling it down somewhat in the process. I reinforced it and I am hoping that will be enough. I am also hoping that the little plants come back. I bought one replacement today. This was all in the small raised bed garden.

Onions, radishes, broccoli, and brussels sprouts

The main garden plot was filled out with a bunch of tomato plants, peppers, edamame (soy beans), and lima beans. The onions, broccoli and brussels sprouts look pretty good, but the onions are sending up flower stalks. We snapped them off this year although Joni thinks that it might not help. Maybe they are already slowing down bulb development. We’ll see. This is the first year trying broccoli and brussels sprouts so we shall see how they do. I am expecting a great big green plant with some small barely harvestable parts, but maybe I will be surprised. Not setting my sights too high for these.

newly planted main garden with a row of zinnias on the end

We spaced out the tomato plants a little wider this year and put some rows of peppers in between. We are really looking forward to harvesting and canning lots of tomatoes, tomato sauce and salsa. We planted six Roma plants, a few heirloom varieties, a Better Boy, Early girl, Supersonic, a Cupid grape tomato plant. We planted several orange bell peppers along with a Jalapeno, a couple of sweet banana and a Hunganian Wax pepper.

Sugar and regular peas and newly planted beans and squash and melons

In the secondary garden area, we planted a second row of peas and put up a trellis. The original triple row of sugar peas are doing pretty well. I’m not sure how well the three plants will do climbing over each other. It might be hard to find the peas in all that tangle. We planted a half row of Derby bush beans with a half row of Fordhook lima beans and another half row of something (maybe a different bush bean), but I left a row and a half for planting in two week intervals. I hope I can stick to the schedule. Right in the middle row I planted a series of viney plants. From west to each it contains: Turkish eggplant (seeds), watermelon, Blenheim Orange melon, Zephyr squash, Gurnet’s Lil’ Sweet cantaloupe, and Miss Pickler “Pioneer” cucumbers. That’s going to be a jungle in a couple of months! I can’t wait to hack my way through that erea in search of fruit!