Lets see your garden as it grows. Start taking pics and update them occasionally to chronicle the season.
My vegetable garden is smaller this year because of a failing retainer wall. Here it is as of July 4th. Peppers, broccoli/kohlrabi and tomatoes.
Andy P
Look at those neat and pretty gardens! Mine's a bit more haphazard... here it is on July 4 = corn, toms, squash, peppers, eggplant...those are peas and beans up in the air out back there...
We are adding a GH, Arbor & walkway to the Veggie Garden this year. So our growing area is a little different this year and we will be planing new raised beds for next year. Even with all the disruption things are looking pretty good and growing well so far. We had wonderful asparagus earlier and have been harvesting broccoli. Ric is growing his potatoes in barrels as he had done in the last several years. There are tomatoes, peppers, beans, onions & zucchini to come.
There are Gladiolus planted down the walkway and we will incorporate a few flowers mixed in with the Veggies but there will be fewer flowers next year as the GH is taking up space. The Iris bed will be moved out of the edge of the Veggie Garden and the mint patch will be reduced by half.
There are red runner beans growing on the arbor Ric thought they would be both pretty and tasty. We haven't grown them before so we will see.
This will be fun!! Ok so here we go, these are my Maters that were planted on June 4th, I have about 20 plus plants of different kinds some I started myself, others from a friend who started different varieties. I also made new tomato cages this year to stand 4ft tall replacing my older ones made of the same thing.
Now these are my Mater plants as of July 7th.. they grew pretty tall mind you, thank goodness for the new tomato cages!
My last photo, it includes me in the photo july 7th so you can get an idea just how tall my maters have gotten. I am 5' 7" tall
My squash garden June 4th, everything under domes to protect against critters, insects(esp squash vine borer), wind, branches etc. Plus I kept all these industrial light covers out of the land fills!
My July 7th squash garden in all it's glory... come on keep going!! I even used old pillow display racks(white towers) from the local HD... keeping them out of the local landfills as well! Along with old aluminum ladders...
Sqaush garden from a different view July 7th..
Squash garden, using an old aluminum ladder no one wanted...
All my pepper plants are now growing in the perennial flower beds safe and out of harms way. Hopefully I will be successfull and have a great harvest of peppers this year, last year wasn't to good they were mixed in with the maters and squash and they were just buried!
Wow your broccoli looks great, wish mine were that big!
Wow..!!
LOL... your garden is more like mine!! Mine is far from neat esp now. It was funny I clicked on your photo and your garden is a spitten image of my friends garden!!
Bazuhi, Love your squash covers what a great use of excess material. Your garden looks great.
Well here are our Maters. LOL
Here's my garden; the grape arbor and sink are on the left and hollyhocks and zinnias on the right. Down the path there are onions and chard to the left and more chard, lettuce, and cucumbers on the right, plus a peach tree and my greenhouse. On the other side of the patio you can see my tomato tripods to the left of the bistro set, and to their right I have fennel bulbs and leeks, with a row of flowers to the right of that. Out of sight are kale and squash and sweet potatoes. The wall at the back was built to shelter a line of fig trees; we are trying to get them to winter over well enough to get fruit!
This message was edited Jul 9, 2011 6:49 PM
And coming into the garden from one of the other gates, the greenhouse is straight ahead and there is asparagus and strawberries on the left, followed by peppers and my tomato tripods. On the right are herbs, Fortex pole beans, and lima beans. Lots of California poppies, zinnias, and blue salvia too.
I just got enough 2nd growth broccoli for another salad: chopped with craisins, bacon, grated cheese, mayo, and balsamic vinegar; yummy. I also got an armful of green bell and yellow banana peppers, maybe peppers and eggs for breakfast :-} Holly's Ric
Greenhouse-gal, I very much remember pic;s of your lovely Veggie Garden I have seen in the past. It made such an impression that when we were deciding on a spot for our new GH I thought of yours and new it would fit perfectly in our Veggie Garden.
Just one Zucchini plant with mint in the background.
Some of you are surely ahead of me but this is my first head of broccoli of the season.
Green Goliath.
Andy P
The zucchini plant looks very healthy. Does mint help with pest deterrence? Sarah, the broccoli is gorgeous; I just can't grow that successfully. Here's another picture of my garden, this time from the greenhouse looking toward the house. Tomato poles on the right with bean fencing on the left; mixed kale and other greens in the foreground.
That sure is a nice head of broccoli. Ric did a second cutting the other day and got a couple of cups and made a yummy broccoli salad.
Greenhouse-Gal your garden sure looks lovely and the plants look like they are growing great. Not sure if the mints help with pests or not. I want to do a serious reduction of the mint area. They have really spread out in the last year. Not that I didn't know they would but at the time I put them there they were very small plants. I want to do terra-cotta flue pipes with different mints in each one and keep them contained to that space. We do use the mint but nowhere near as much as grows there.
HollyAnn, every time I think about how nice it would be to have mint I remember how hard it was to extirpate it when I tried growing it years ago. Terra cotta flue pipes would help, but I have a lot of plants that self-sow via seeds quite far from where the original mother plant was, so I'm not sure whether that sort of containment would really do the trick. You can try and let us know...
Bazuhi
I love those covers you have on your plants. Man you should start selling them, I would puchard some....
Love seeing everyones garden.
I hope to have one next year. We got down here to late to start one, but I'm hoping to have a fall garden for some things.
Jan
I figure the mint will self sow around the flues but it will give me a contained area that I can use as a reference to weed around, rather than the ever expanding area I now have. with one type of mint growing into another. I think I like the idea of having mint more than I really use it. It is nice to go and pick some fresh mint for ice tea or to add as a garnish but in reality most of it doesn't get used. Some of the less used mints have already been moved out of the garden area to an area down behind the barn.
I've also heard that mint is a great fly repellent, so down behind the barn sounds like a good place for it. People recommend planting it where you have livestock like horses or sheep.
Well the horses and other barn animals are long gone. But it is a good spot for plants that I want to keep but don't want to keep up.
Very pretty and healthy gardens all... I am always amazed at how the southern gardens start early and the northern gardens catch up so quickly. Now is the depressing time. Ours are withering and dying and y'alls are lovely!
A comment on the mint ~ I don't know about repelling flies but it does serve to attract bees. In fact, they have found when planted under bee hives, it will protect the hive from varroa mites which can kill a hive.
Well, We do like our pollinators.
We are having a time with the Fusarium Wilt and squash beetles. Ihave sprayed for the bugs, using Sevin dilution, but, they just shake it off and walk away. The wilt.....not much I can do with it. The sweet potato vines seem to be doing well, and are trying to take over the garden. The bush beans are finally producing, I replanted 2 new sections of corn and sunflowers. I have harvested okra, and alot of tomatoes from the original 8 vines. We are also enjoying cucumbers, planted in various places thru the property. We are trying rhubarb, for fiances father..to see if it even grows down here in the south. It is all an experiment here, as this is our first year planting veggies on this 1 acre..and we don't know what to expect.
Taken in June, 2011...American Purple Top Rutabagas on the left, Bull's Blood Beets on the right. Open area is seeded for Thai Star Cucumbers,Sqash Straightnec, Zucchini - Black Beauty, Cucumber Sikkim and Blue Lake 274 grean beans. Not too visible are heirloom Roma tomatoes.
Located in Batavia, IL.. 55 miles west of Chicago
What a gorgeous garden, turgidcelery (and what a funny screen name!) It's so neat and clean looking, too.
