Mid-June Garden Update

Things are happening in the garden! I started putting vegetables in the garden back in March and continually planted until the end of May. With the exception of the beans and corn (which I planted from seed directly into the ground), all of the plants came from my sister who started them from seed (thanks J!). So far, this is what I have in the garden: 

• 21 tomato plants (including John Baer, Moonglow, Fox Cherry, Nebraska Wedding, German Pink, Amish Paste, Persimmon, Better Bush, Sungold, Big Boy, Striped German, Super Sioux, Hillbilly)
• 2 Early Jalapeno
• 2 Bulgarian Carrot Pepper
• 3 Sweet Banana Pepper
• Basil
• 2 Moon & Star (watermelon)
• Crimson Sweet (watermelon)
• 2 Dark Raven Zucchini
• Dark Green Zucchini
• Black Beauty Zucchini
• Waltham Butternut Squash
• Delicata Squash
• Peaches & Cream (corn)
• Bodalicious (corn)
• Kentucky Wonder (green beans)
• Blue Lake (green beans)
• Ideal Market (green beans)
• Provider (green beans)
• Lacinato Kale
• Scallions
• Red Swiss Chard
• Pumpkins (unsure which kind because my daughter mixed up the seeds when she planted them)

Here are some pictures from this morning. In this first picture, you can see 4 separate areas of the garden. In the foreground, there is some overgrown parsley that has gone to seed. I did this on purpose. It’s important to let some plants flower to attract beneficial insects to your garden. It’s time is almost up, though. I will need the space soon for yet another plant from my sister.

Below on the left, there are 2 watermelons (both Moon & Star) in front and a Delicata Squash in the back. On the right are 4 lacinato kale plants and a bunch of scallions (a little difficult to see …). In the back are a borage (on the left) and an orchid rose (on the right).

  

Below are 7 tomato plants arranged in a U shape. At the bottom of the picture is a Dark Green Zucchini. See the zucchini?! If I wait another 2 days, it will be the size of a baseball bat! Better pick it tonight.

I also like to experiment with stuff in my yard since I have the space (and I clearly am not a “neat & tidy” gardener) – one of my colleagues cut down a tree and had a huge stack of logs in her backyard. Twice I filled up my trunk with logs and hauled them to my backyard. (At this juncture, I would like to thank my husband for kindly vacuuming my car for me! We both know I would never get around to it!) I decided to use the logs to make 2 “natural” raised beds in some open spaces in the yard – they also provide some more structure to the yard. I filled them with almost-finished compost. In the picture below, the largest plant is a Waltham Butternut Squash that I planted on purpose. All the other smaller plants that you see are volunteers that came up from the compost. And, of course, I will “let them do their thing.”

Here is a another volunteer … something. I’m thinking it’s a squash of some kind – acorn perhaps? It grew out of the compost I used to fill one of my log make-shift raised beds.

Below is a whole mess of tomato plants (not sure exactly how many), but what I really wanted to showcase is the green leafy thing growing up higher than the tomato plants – it’s a large sunflower that’s growing out of a pot that I set between the tomato plants. In the pot, I put a bunch of wildflower, poppy, and sunflower seeds.

I’m experimenting with planting wildflowers and sunflowers in pots all over the garden. Last season (2014), I had a row of pots with wildflowers growing in the middle of one of my raised beds. Late winter 2015, wildflowers started growing all over that bed. I let them do their thing, and we ended up with purple, white, and blue flowers that were covered in big black hungry bees! This morning, Maya (5) and Nico (2) took the dried seed pods off the wildflowers and threw them all over the yard – hopefully next year we’ll have even more volunteer flowers. Here is a picture of one of the pots from this season:

I just hope all these plants translate into some real eating later this summer!