Garden Notes



Quite frankly, this post is mostly for me, as I tend to lose or not to keep up with every garden journal that I begin.  I would like to work on that, as I think keeping a beautiful, organized garden notebook every year would be a nice record to have.  Also, I think it would be a really good example for the kiddoes, for them to be able to see and hold a summer long writing project that I have done.  But, for now, this blog, which I am finding to be a satisfying project, just about right for my organizational and attentional capabilities.



I keep trying to get the whole thing, although it makes it look kind of small, which it sort of is and sort of isn't.  My parents call it my truck farm, but it is pretty average around here.  It certainly doesn't feed us throughout the year...and actually, it hasn't really started to totally feed us for the summer--I got it in pretty late.  We are getting some cucumbers, some summer squash, but not that many, and some baby greens for salad.  Our bush beans are blossoming, and I have stuck some more  zucchini and bean seeds in at random.  I need to pull up one of my two baby greens patches and re-sow it. 

David wanted to dig when he watched me gardening.  He was naked, as it was hot and he had been playing in the kiddie pool.  I have a better shot, but it was less modest.  While we are pretty casual around here, I don't care to post naked pictures of my children on the Internet.  Also, do you see all the plastic stuff around?  They were all given to us, and they have all (except the purple bike, which is officially David's now) been given to someone else.

This is my somewhat pitiful attempt to get a shot of Elsa's garden, which is looking totally glorious right now...I am not a good enough photographer to really get the colors right.  The one sunflower is a volunteer--usually, we get more.  Maybe it was the late frost.  We did seed a few kind of late in the game, but I am looking forward to having them in September.  This is the first year I have been really excited about flowers.  I am now dreaming of a flower and berry garden along our new fence.  I actually just checked out a book from the library called Lasagna Gardening, which looked really good, so maybe this fall I will try making a flower bed over there.  Of course, I may have some other things on my mind come fall.....Also, you can see many of my tomato plants, which seem to be doing well.  They are beautiful and green, but don't seem to be as totally huge as they have been in previous years, which I think may be good in terms of fruit production.  They are certainly laden with lots and lots of fruit, which looks like it will probably ripen just in time for us to go North for our annual family reunion.  I have been trying to spray them with Serenade, which is the organic control for blight, even though thus far we haven't been having trouble with it.  It's early in the season though, and I would like to avoid leaving for vacation and coming home to a bunch of leafless tomato plants.  I do love my tomato plants.  And you can kind of see David's giant pumpkin plants--they are not giant yet, but we are hoping.  We have not had the bug problem this year that we have in the past.  I am hoping it is because with Elsa's garden, we have attracted more beneficials, but it might also be that it is too hot for me to spend a whole lot of time out there.

This is just another shot for me to see how much it has grown.  The Brussels Sprouts are growing tiny little sprouts--it's pretty cool.  Our watermelon plants are finally beginning to vine.  There are lots of little butternut squash coming--they are so much fun to grow.  I also planted a few pie pumpkins and acorn squash where the peas were--right in the nick, I think July first.  I have some huge basil plants--when my parents are here, I should make some pesto.  And we have been harvesting lavender--the kids brought some out to the van, which is making it smell awfully nice.  There are some cool craft ideas for it too in Living Craft magazine--hopefully we will get to it this week.   So, that's where we are this week.   It's going to cool off, and I have procured a hoe, so I am looking forward to spending a little more time there this week.