SFG photos
I just wanted to share some photos of my small square-foot garden and take the opportunity to also ask for some advice.
If it looks like my garden is way behind, that's because it is. :/ It's only gotten fairly consistently warm in the Seattle area about a week or two ago. It's now in the 80s; before, we were in the 60s. /sad face
You're looking at 3 things here. In the center are the carrots. I have no idea if they're ready to pull yet, but the leafiness is getting a bit crazy. They're trying to smother the little basil that I grew from seed, which you can sort of see at the bottom. They're very small right now, but I have pruned them back one time. To the sides are the big basil plants I got two days ago from Trader Joe's. I don't think my little basil plants are going to produce enough basil for me before the end of the summer, so that's why I got the TJ ones. They're not super well grown, they're very leggy, but for $1.99 each I'm not going to complain. I've already pruned back one of them, yielding a generous amount of basil, and once those are eaten I'll prune back the other two.
This is a small Dwarf Meyer Lemon tree (supposedly). I have never encountered one of these before so I don't know what they're supposed to look like. I'm assuming those buds are flowers... It hasn't grown much in height since I got it so I have no idea when I'll ever see lemons, lol. Or if this is actually even a Meyer Lemon tree!
Here's the baby zucchini plant. It's tiny compared to other squash plants I've seen others have. :( I don't know if I will get any zucchini at all from this plant before the summer's over.
Tomato plants, which I'm training onto the trellis. I got these from a nursery and planted them in April, which was WAY too early, as the weather still resembled autumn/winter rather than spring/summer. At some point I thought they were goners. Thanks to advice from this community I didn't rip them out, and now they're finally doing well. Yes, they're way behind in comparison to tomato plants across the rest of the country though.
Here are some Sun Gold tomatoes fruiting. Very exciting, as many early flowers were victims of blossom drop. Either the warmer weather or pollinators are helping with these later ones.
A few Big Beef tomatoes just starting to grow. They're so tiny!
Another Big Beef tomato. This one grew to about this size a week or two ago and has pretty much stopped growing. I don't know what's causing the stunted growth. :/ I'm watering the tomatoes deeply once a week... maybe that's too often?
These are the tomato plants I grew from seed (so I'm extra proud of them). They're EVEN FURTHER behind, about half the size of the nursery ones, since they didn't get planted out until about 3-4 weeks ago. They're JUST starting to flower now, which is finally giving me an idea of what varieties I planted. (I got the seedlings mixed up, so didn't know which were cherries and which were the Beefmasters.)
Chocolate mint, doing very well. I have no idea what to use it for, though. The first thing that comes to mind is tea, but I don't exactly feel like hot tea in warm weather.
My poor aloe plant. I thought this was a goner too, see how brown the side leaves are? I think I set it out too early, when it was too rainy and cold. But recently I started to notice that the center was getting green again, so hopefully it's making a comeback.
The garlic! Do you think the leaves are brown enough now to harvest? I've been watering them about once a week, but if they're about ready I'm going to stop the watering.
Some green strawberries... I wonder if I'll get to eat any or if the birds will get them all, as has been the case for the earlier harvest. But earlier there were only half a dozen or so, and they ripened at different times. Maybe with more I'll actually get to eat some. I had bird netting on before, but it didn't help at all. :/
If it looks like my garden is way behind, that's because it is. :/ It's only gotten fairly consistently warm in the Seattle area about a week or two ago. It's now in the 80s; before, we were in the 60s. /sad face
You're looking at 3 things here. In the center are the carrots. I have no idea if they're ready to pull yet, but the leafiness is getting a bit crazy. They're trying to smother the little basil that I grew from seed, which you can sort of see at the bottom. They're very small right now, but I have pruned them back one time. To the sides are the big basil plants I got two days ago from Trader Joe's. I don't think my little basil plants are going to produce enough basil for me before the end of the summer, so that's why I got the TJ ones. They're not super well grown, they're very leggy, but for $1.99 each I'm not going to complain. I've already pruned back one of them, yielding a generous amount of basil, and once those are eaten I'll prune back the other two.
This is a small Dwarf Meyer Lemon tree (supposedly). I have never encountered one of these before so I don't know what they're supposed to look like. I'm assuming those buds are flowers... It hasn't grown much in height since I got it so I have no idea when I'll ever see lemons, lol. Or if this is actually even a Meyer Lemon tree!
Here's the baby zucchini plant. It's tiny compared to other squash plants I've seen others have. :( I don't know if I will get any zucchini at all from this plant before the summer's over.
Tomato plants, which I'm training onto the trellis. I got these from a nursery and planted them in April, which was WAY too early, as the weather still resembled autumn/winter rather than spring/summer. At some point I thought they were goners. Thanks to advice from this community I didn't rip them out, and now they're finally doing well. Yes, they're way behind in comparison to tomato plants across the rest of the country though.
Here are some Sun Gold tomatoes fruiting. Very exciting, as many early flowers were victims of blossom drop. Either the warmer weather or pollinators are helping with these later ones.
A few Big Beef tomatoes just starting to grow. They're so tiny!
Another Big Beef tomato. This one grew to about this size a week or two ago and has pretty much stopped growing. I don't know what's causing the stunted growth. :/ I'm watering the tomatoes deeply once a week... maybe that's too often?
These are the tomato plants I grew from seed (so I'm extra proud of them). They're EVEN FURTHER behind, about half the size of the nursery ones, since they didn't get planted out until about 3-4 weeks ago. They're JUST starting to flower now, which is finally giving me an idea of what varieties I planted. (I got the seedlings mixed up, so didn't know which were cherries and which were the Beefmasters.)
Chocolate mint, doing very well. I have no idea what to use it for, though. The first thing that comes to mind is tea, but I don't exactly feel like hot tea in warm weather.
My poor aloe plant. I thought this was a goner too, see how brown the side leaves are? I think I set it out too early, when it was too rainy and cold. But recently I started to notice that the center was getting green again, so hopefully it's making a comeback.
The garlic! Do you think the leaves are brown enough now to harvest? I've been watering them about once a week, but if they're about ready I'm going to stop the watering.
Some green strawberries... I wonder if I'll get to eat any or if the birds will get them all, as has been the case for the earlier harvest. But earlier there were only half a dozen or so, and they ripened at different times. Maybe with more I'll actually get to eat some. I had bird netting on before, but it didn't help at all. :/