Wednesday, June 23, 2010

How does our garden grow?


Our garden has been a bit of an experiment this year. We planted beans, but they never grew, and we're not sure why. We planted sugar peas and they've taken over the world. They get harvested daily now, with no end in sight. The broccoli didn't grow well and tastes funny. It feels like wasted garden real estate for so little harvest, and I don't think we'll do it again. We'll probably tear all that out soon and replace it with some zucchini starts. Our carrots probably won't grow too big, as they're planted really closely together (I had a jr. gardener helping me sow them). I want to try the seed tape method for them next year- check it out, it's really cool! The spinach was a big success. We had a huge harvest, and two tomato plants have taken up residence in their old spot. Living in a cooler climate, we can re-sow spinach here when the tomatoes are spent and get a second harvest. I'm thinking about trying some swiss chard at that time as well.

We transplanted strawberries from last year's container garden and have they ever multiplied and replenished. My dad has had strawberries as groundcover for as long as I can remember, and it always impressed those who sneaked a strawberry on their way to knock on the door. We added some blueberries and raspberries well, and look forward to future harvests from them.

My favorite part of growing the garden has been watching Stinky grab a pea pod right off the vine and pop it in his mouth (he still likes it better with some ranch dip). Next year, I hope to get more starts going early in the spring, and look at adding another raised bed so we can play with some more variety.

I'd love to hear what's worked for others. Have you gotten a garden going this year?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have a garden for the first time this year, but it's not doing much yet. (Probably because I only planted like two weeks ago.) You can thin your carrots if you want, although it's kind of hard not to pull out the others while doing that. Hopefully I'll have more to report in a month or so.