This Year’s Garden, (so far)

I planned on getting some pictures of the garden beds in progress after work today, but it is just raining cats and dogs out there! I’m pleased with this rain, though… as we all know those little seeds need the rains as much as the sun in order to grow!

Even though I can’t get any good pics right now, I’ll still share a rundown of what we have going on out there, so far!

Berries…. In our tiered strawberry bed, our strawberry plants are doing great! They came back bigger and healthier than ever this year, and they’re spilling out of the bed and trailing all along the ground!  Some were starting to creep into the rose hedges and the raspberry bushes, so I dug those up and shared them with friends.  Speaking of those raspberries… we gave them a pruning back in early April, and we put some new trellises up behind them. Next to the raspberries and strawberries, we’ve got two blueberry bushes. We’ve had them for 3 years now, and have yet to see a berry… there seems to be lots of new growth and buds of them so far, so maybe this will be the year we see some fruit!

In addition to our little berry area, we also have seven 6x8 foot raised beds:

Lettuces… We have one bed dedicated to salad greens. In this bed, I have planted some Simpson lettuce seeds, some Bibb lettuce seeds, and some spinach seeds. Still waiting for it all to sprout!

More greens… in another bed, I’ve put in some kale, cabbage, collards and broccoli. These were starts from a local garden center. So far, so good!

Peas and Potatoes… a couple of weeks ago, I planted some pea seeds (right after last frost!) They have sprouted and are coming along nicely! In the same bed, I planted some seed potatoes last weekend, Yukon golds on one side, russets on the other.

Cukes, summer squashes and beets… a couple of weeks ago I planted some beet seeds, and then last week I put in some pickling cucumbers plants, some zucchini plants and some crookneck squash plants. These were starts from the garden center, and they seem to be doing well, so far. Still waiting for the beets to sprout.

Tomatoes, carrots and herbs… For tomatoes this year, we’ve got 5 kinds of heirlooms, along with some cherry tomatoes and some romas. I put those in two weeks ago, and they look great so far. The week before that, in the same bed, I planted carrot seeds, and also put in some basil and parsley.

Beans, squashes and melons… in the last two beds, I have planted green bean and wax bean seeds, sugar pumpkins, acorn squash and watermelons. Still waiting for those to sprout, too!

Peppers… in pots! We ran out of room in the beds, so this year we put our peppers in pots! We’ve got some sweet banana peppers, red bells, poblanos and habaneros.

Although we got a late start planning our garden this year, I’m pleased that we managed to get everything into the ground by mid-May, right on schedule. We managed to catch up by buying starts from the garden center, rather than grow our own seedlings. This is definitely a much more expensive way to start the garden, though it certainly took a lot less time and effort.

So now we watch, water, weed and wait!