May was an extremely busy month in the Garden. Not so many great photos, as half of the month was spent dashing between raindrops. And my hands covered with mud, and then spur of the minute complete changes to EVERYTHING...
But we now have a fence around the garden. It's a start. I'm still hoping that lovely chicken wire turns into pickets as time goes by. :) The fence was an impulse buy as my husband discovered trampled crops with stray dog prints dancing around in the mud. Cedar poles that were on sale, and chicken wire... it works for now.
So with a sporadic fence building after one has already started planting the garden, you end up with some funky spaces to fill. Like what was going to be a simple marigold border around the garden, became an underwhelming start to an herb garden. Good news, or bad news, depending on how you look at it, most of these are annuals so next year it can be planned much better. But for this year we have Lavender, Rosemary, Sage, Lemon Balm, German Chamomile, Lemon Verbena, Parsley, Dill, and Cilantro. And of course grass that I'm still working on clearing out. The original garden only went to that oh so lovely log on the right hand side, lol. Behind the herbs is a first year raised strawberry bed. Like I said, we've been busy. :)
There's been many challenges and successes already this year. The great part was the half of the garden that we started with last year was super easy to weed, and the soil is already looking more like dirt and less like clay. The disadvantages beyond all of the rain, was putting up a fence after the garden was mostly laid out, which is leading to crowded spaces, and unused wasted space (because apparently I can't garden straight, lol). So getting in the max crop probably won't happen again this year. And then I started late, and forgot to order seeds, and... well it wasn't a priority when it should have been.
So with bad planning, and lots of space left to play with (awkward spaces of course) we have planted:
- 3 types of tomatoes, which sounds like a lot, but isn't even enough to feed us and can.
- Sweet Corn
- popcorn
- green beans (pole and bush)
- potatoes
- onions
- garlic <-planted last fall
- lettuce/spinach/radish
- zucchini
- cucumbers
- watermelon
- pumpkin <- not enough to count, I'm filling in the huge gaps around the fence, hopefully the vines don't destroy the fence, lol.
- herbs
- sweet peppers
- egg plant
- strawberries
- Raspberry bush <-permanent plants from last year, but I'm still counting them. :)
And then I might have planted lots of things that have nothing to do with food, beyond they feed the bees and butterflies, which help the food. And they're pretty, which makes me happy. And ummm, there was lots of awkward spaces to fill. :) So farm-ish garden is starting to turn French cottage-ish.
And they're annuals. I never buy annuals, but seriously, who could resist? And they were on clearance.
We also constructed a compost bin, and have worked in just enough room to build a sort of garden shed, just big enough to toss all the rakes, and shoves, and pots in, to keep them from rusting away. There's still lots to do. I need a movable raised bed for carrots, and I'd like to expand on the outside of the fence with cutting flowers, or roses, or something to #1 keep down on weed whacking, and #2 to continue on with the cottage portage garden look.
But at last there is some progress. We've come a long way since this was taken a year ago:
And then just because, the goat:
And a guest that hung out with us on Memorial Day weekend:
How's your garden growing?
~Emily
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