This past weekend, I spent a good amount of the time completing work on the back garden. I'm pretty satisfied with how everything came together and am glad that most of the heavy lifting is behind me now.
Also, it felt nice to set out the last transplants for this year's summer growing season. June offers many of us a nice break before the fall and winter gardening preparations start in earnest in July. I'm sure it won't be long before the lights on my seed-starting shelves are turned on once again.
The 1st year Asparagus ferns are knee high at this point. After weeding the bed, I mulched with some dried grass clippings.
The potatoes have really taken off during the past week. As a result, it was time to hill them up with lots of straw. Hopefully, they will start to flower soon. Also, I covered all of my planting holes with straw in order to better regulate the moisture underneath.
I also got around to trellising and mulching my tomato plants. Hopefully this thick layer of straw will reduce the risk of bottom end rot, which can result from moisture stress. To the left of the tomatoes are some of my chili peppers (Ancho/Poblano, Jalapeno, Pepperoncino, Thai and Hawaiian).
Here's another view of the back-end of the garden, which is planted with melons, more cukes, corn and purple tomatilloes. Since I only have 5 corn plants per planting holing, I don't have much confidence that they will pollinate properly.
Finally, I got around to transplanting my sweet peppers and zucchini. Hopefully they will enjoy the full sun available in this part of the yard.
That's it! I'm now looking forward to watching everything grow.
My Lord, someone get that man a beer! You have been quite busy. Your making the rest of us feel bad.
ReplyDeleteIt looks great, you have been busy. Everything is so neat and orderly. I love it!
ReplyDeleteI am impressed! This is just beautiful. I know how had is to create a new garden and you did it in record time.
ReplyDeleteThe straw mulch is great for keeping the moisture in, but weeds do get through.
You certainly deserve to sit back and watch everything grow. Let's hope that you get rain at proper intervals and in right amounts and then you will definitely not need to do much but watch and harvest. Your back garden looks great!
ReplyDeleteLooks great! I am anxious to start seeing the new garden fill in for you this season! Looks like a lot of hard work is really paying off...
ReplyDeleteHow beautiful! I like the trellis for the tomatoes. I need to come up with something better.
ReplyDeleteYour design for the new garden seems to be working out wonderfully! It's nice to see the layout come to life.
You did an amazing job on that new garden! I really like the way you laid it out...so neat and orderely. Hopefully your plants will get so so big and it won't look so orderly :) I finally set up my trellising for the tomatoes. What a job...the plants were bigger then I expected them to be when I did it. It seems like it is going to work out well. Nice Job!!
ReplyDeleteWhew! What a beautiful job you did on the back garden. I know how you feel to be finished the major work. Now you can watch it grow with minimal effort and reap the rewards.
ReplyDeleteEverything is well laid out and holds the promise of a really bountiful garden. I love straw mulch but had to quit using it here - because we have SO many slugs in the rainy coastal pacific northwest - that they just made that their little slug home. I actually avoid using any organic mulch for that reason. However, when I lived in less slug filled areas the straw mulch was a favorite of mine because it looks so nice, did a good job of holding moisture, and made a fabulous addition to the compost pile at the end of the season.
ReplyDeleteYou had a mighty busy weekend! The garden is looking fabulous and I'm sure it is going to reward you in spades.
ReplyDeleteLooks great! I'm in the watch phase too.
ReplyDeleteWay to go, Thomas!
ReplyDeleteYour garden is huge and looks really nice. My garden season is coming to a close here pretty soon. June will be the last month until September. Oh the joys of living in the desert.
ReplyDeleteThomas, beautiful! it is a work of art. By the way, remember the '09 squash and zucchini seeds I started at the end of February, well... we may be grilling zucchini in a few days, if only the sun would shine. Have a wonderful week.
ReplyDeleteDo you have a day job? This is a tremendous amount of work.
ReplyDeleteHow do you keep the insects off of your chard and kale? Grasshoppers have decimated our crop.
On the flip side, lettuces have been prolific. We just keep harvesting the outer leaves and the heads just keep on growing. No pests. Huh?