state of the garden, 2014
My garden documentation this year has been fairly haphazard, not least because I got such a late start on my planting; I didn't want to photograph it, I wanted to be out creating it! But 
grammarwoman asked for photos, and it turned out I did have a few already, which I supplemented with a few additional photos earlier this week. (Click the photos to see slightly larger versions.)
First, the big picture: the view from the upstairs window.
May 18, 2014. The beds are still mostly empty, alas, except for the garlic in the back, the little puff of parsnips in one of the middle beds, and a couple of onions that apparently I forgot to dig last year. Oops. The bird garden off to the right is also empty; the prairie flowers and grasses I planted there a few years ago appreciate my back yard so much that they grew into a vast prairie jungle that blocked the path to the garage, so they've been divided and relocated. The raspberry canes at the back of the bird garden are just starting to green up.
A closer shot of the garlic and the raspberry canes.
May 28, 2014. Ten days later, I'd gotten some work done: the tomatoes, peppers, and basil are in, the beans and squash and melons are planted (and their trellises are up), and the potatoes and leeks are in. The raspberry canes are leafing, and the strawberries are growing strongly. ...as are the weeds, but I try not to notice that part.
June 24, 2014. A sunny afternoon in the garden -- and a wide enough shot that you can see the prairie plants coming up along the fence and the asparagus failing to thrive at the bottom left. (Last winter killed almost everybody's asparagus, so at least it wasn't just me.)
July 27, 2014. The tomatoes are suffering, but almost everything else is doing pretty well. I am especially amused by the wall of beans and the giant squash plants:
A short digression on animals in the garden:
The crops that are not doing well are the edamame, the peas, and the carrots (though you can't see that in the photos because they're hidden by the beans and potatoes respectively). I was baffled by this at first, because the weather conditions were actually better for those crops this year than last year, and last year I had a bumper crop of all of them.
Then one morning I noticed Toby and Theo looking intently out the dining room windows at the shade garden. It took me a while to figure out what they were looking at.
Look to the left of the iris.
Yes, a family of rabbits -- including a trio of baby rabbits -- had taken up residence in my shade garden and were using the veggie garden as their own personal buffet. (There are always rabbits around here, but generally they live in my neighbors' yards and don't hang out much in mine.) Apparently I'm going to need a fence around the perimeter of the garden before next year's edamame go in. Sigh.
Harvests have been good so far, and much earlier than last year's, even though I got most things in the ground anywhere from a week to six weeks late.
Tomatoes, squash, and lettuce.
Beans, tomatoes, cilantro, jalapeños, and one wee pattypan squash.
The ingredients for my favorite summer tomato soup.
Bread and wine to go with the soup -- rosemary olive bread (I grew the rosemary, but shockingly not the olives). I'm grateful it's been cool enough to bake bread!
This photo is for
renenet. She knows why. :D
And now, some photos of the garden beds and their contents.
The wall o' beans, with a blank space off to the right where the peas and edamame should be and a volunteer tomato plant at front left. This is the bed where the tomatoes were last year, so volunteer tomato plant isn't totally a surprise -- except this is a Sara's Galapagos plant, the rarest of last year's tomato plants, the most peculiar and hardest to find. So I am taking its (re)appearance as a sign that I am supposed to save its seeds this year and distribute them to anyone who wants them. They are wonderful.
Wee yellow crookneck squash, one with the blossom still on.
Tiny fuzzy melons-to-be!
Black cherry tomatoes, which I haven't grown before but will again; they're delicious, all the rich flavor of a black tomato in a single large bite.
A Rosa Bianca eggplant just busting out of its calyx.
The jalapeño plant is already quite productive.
The serrano plant is just starting to produce baby chiles.
The bell peppers are fruiting fairly heavily.
The frying peppers are fruiting very heavily; I think a few will have ripened by this time next week.
Beans are pretty.
Predictably, the sage is attempting to take over the herb garden.
The view down the main garden path, with alpine strawberries in the foreground.
And that is the news from the garden so far.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth
grammarwoman asked for photos, and it turned out I did have a few already, which I supplemented with a few additional photos earlier this week. (Click the photos to see slightly larger versions.)
First, the big picture: the view from the upstairs window.
May 18, 2014. The beds are still mostly empty, alas, except for the garlic in the back, the little puff of parsnips in one of the middle beds, and a couple of onions that apparently I forgot to dig last year. Oops. The bird garden off to the right is also empty; the prairie flowers and grasses I planted there a few years ago appreciate my back yard so much that they grew into a vast prairie jungle that blocked the path to the garage, so they've been divided and relocated. The raspberry canes at the back of the bird garden are just starting to green up.
A closer shot of the garlic and the raspberry canes.
May 28, 2014. Ten days later, I'd gotten some work done: the tomatoes, peppers, and basil are in, the beans and squash and melons are planted (and their trellises are up), and the potatoes and leeks are in. The raspberry canes are leafing, and the strawberries are growing strongly. ...as are the weeds, but I try not to notice that part.
June 24, 2014. A sunny afternoon in the garden -- and a wide enough shot that you can see the prairie plants coming up along the fence and the asparagus failing to thrive at the bottom left. (Last winter killed almost everybody's asparagus, so at least it wasn't just me.)
July 27, 2014. The tomatoes are suffering, but almost everything else is doing pretty well. I am especially amused by the wall of beans and the giant squash plants:
A short digression on animals in the garden:
The crops that are not doing well are the edamame, the peas, and the carrots (though you can't see that in the photos because they're hidden by the beans and potatoes respectively). I was baffled by this at first, because the weather conditions were actually better for those crops this year than last year, and last year I had a bumper crop of all of them.
Then one morning I noticed Toby and Theo looking intently out the dining room windows at the shade garden. It took me a while to figure out what they were looking at.
Look to the left of the iris.
Yes, a family of rabbits -- including a trio of baby rabbits -- had taken up residence in my shade garden and were using the veggie garden as their own personal buffet. (There are always rabbits around here, but generally they live in my neighbors' yards and don't hang out much in mine.) Apparently I'm going to need a fence around the perimeter of the garden before next year's edamame go in. Sigh.
Harvests have been good so far, and much earlier than last year's, even though I got most things in the ground anywhere from a week to six weeks late.
Tomatoes, squash, and lettuce.
Beans, tomatoes, cilantro, jalapeños, and one wee pattypan squash.
The ingredients for my favorite summer tomato soup.
Bread and wine to go with the soup -- rosemary olive bread (I grew the rosemary, but shockingly not the olives). I'm grateful it's been cool enough to bake bread!
This photo is for
renenet. She knows why. :D
And now, some photos of the garden beds and their contents.
The wall o' beans, with a blank space off to the right where the peas and edamame should be and a volunteer tomato plant at front left. This is the bed where the tomatoes were last year, so volunteer tomato plant isn't totally a surprise -- except this is a Sara's Galapagos plant, the rarest of last year's tomato plants, the most peculiar and hardest to find. So I am taking its (re)appearance as a sign that I am supposed to save its seeds this year and distribute them to anyone who wants them. They are wonderful.
Wee yellow crookneck squash, one with the blossom still on.
Tiny fuzzy melons-to-be!
Black cherry tomatoes, which I haven't grown before but will again; they're delicious, all the rich flavor of a black tomato in a single large bite.
A Rosa Bianca eggplant just busting out of its calyx.
The jalapeño plant is already quite productive.
The serrano plant is just starting to produce baby chiles.
The bell peppers are fruiting fairly heavily.
The frying peppers are fruiting very heavily; I think a few will have ripened by this time next week.
Beans are pretty.
Predictably, the sage is attempting to take over the herb garden.
The view down the main garden path, with alpine strawberries in the foreground.
And that is the news from the garden so far.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth