2021 garden photos

flower moon 26th.

I've taken a 5 year break from tomatoes. Between the hornworms, early and late blights it was a waste of space. I'm hoping that time has healed all wounds, and I'm putting 4 in this year.

Two years ago the hornworms emerged the soil, and with no tomatoes around they decimated my peppers.

Potatoes have been up for a couple weeks now, Norland Red + Yukon Gold.

Today I put some seeds in - Royal Burgundy Beans + baby Lima Beans along with some beets and swiss chard. They should be fine,, but about 3 minutes after I finished for the day, planting the tomatoes-  pink brandywine, Roma + Big boy - a bad ass rain and hail storm blew in for about 10 violent minutes. Messed my shit all up. Take inventory tomorrow but looks like I may be replanting those.

The new repurposed memorial driveway herb garden did quite well over the winter.  (Always love seeing the chives and sage bloom!).  The basil has sprouted, and will hopefully tolerate the cool nights forecast this week.  Meanwhile, sold a bunch of sundews to a local nursery again this year (Shonnards), while trading the rest for herb, tomato, pepper, and brussel sprout starts.  The indoor seedlings are doing fine, though I started a bit late this year (grew more carnivores).  Nothing like driveway fresh produce!

Not too much this year other than making a raised bed garden due to the rocks and gravel that have evolved here in place of soil.. Neighbors say rototilling  will cause hospitalization, so I've nixxed that endeavor.   Had a few extra concrete blocks from a project so I'm making raised beds.

The beauty of a personal garden is that you can plant what you love, so until soil appears, this year's garden will be planted with tapioca pudding, lsd and chocolate chip cookies.

I have a big problem with gophers and ground squirrels, so everything is in containers. I started six pot plants indoors a couple of months ago, and moved them outdoors about a week ago. They've been topped three times for mainlining. There's also a selection of bloomers from seed in pots just starting to come up: marigolds, Oriental poppies, snapdragons, sunflowers, and zinnias.

I just replanted some Poblano seeds after none of the ones I planted almost three weeks ago came up. I have a cherry tomato plant out front where it gets sun all day long, and a couple of seven gallon pots I seeded with mixed bloomers, and a couple of one gallon pots I seeded with spearmint a week ago; the spearmint will go into seven gallon pots eventually, and I might try to establish a few of those in the ground, although I don't know if they'll overwinter here.

Black Widow due July5

Things are starting to take shape.  

Front yard raised beds:

In these beds, we have tomatillos (x2), tomatoes (two different kinds), cucumber, ground cherries, basil, lettuce (already harvested some), beans, cilantro, goji berries, zucchini, garlic, shallots, and luffa. The persimmon tree in the background is producing a lot of flowers this year and we might have to thin them out to keep the branches from getting overloaded and breaking.   There is also a two year old espalier apple tree along the fence that is loaded with tiny apples (three different kinds).   Not shown from the front are a couple of blueberry plants, a silverberry plant, one struggling tea plant, a wall of rosemary, and a three-year old cherry tree that is producing fruit.

The back garden is mostly ornamentals like these irises and torch lilies, but there is a fig tree and more blueberries among them.  Not shown are young peach and nectarine trees:

 The fig tree in the picture is prolific and has already started forming many plump figs.   And this year's garden experiment is grafting on tiger striped figs to the trunk and the grafts are taking hold!

Side yards (not shown) have raspberries, thornless black berries, and 21 (count em) types of chile peppers.

There is also the community garden plot, which needs some more attention:

In this plot, I have in the ground so far tomatoes (x2), cauliflower, oregano, basil, peas (I need to install a trellis), cabbage (three different kinds), garlic, elephant garlic, kale, bok choy, miniature pumpkin, lettuce, and two types of summer squash.  I just picked up a couple of starts and some seeds to fill in the rest of the plot.   I plan to try the "three sister" thing with corn, beans, and winter squash all planted around each other.

Ken, your gardens look amazing. I love the separated raised beds with the hoop trellis spanning them. Fantastic!

https://www.vivalazone.org/other-stuff/what-are-you-growing-year

I used to grow "the three sisters", Ken, was lovely with strong symbiosis. Happy plants.

Pineapples

The garlerick patch

The repurposed driveway actively mobile recycled future Bloody Mary disco garden is well on it's way.  (Bloody Caesars for my Canadian friends)

After selling a few trays of sundews for decent money to local nurseries and friends, I've been trading the rest of the little meat eaters for various veggie starts, enjoying freebies in various FB groups, my own seedlings, etc, and I'm now up to 18 types of Tomatoes, and 17 types of peppers...   also, brussell sprouts, tomatillos, cipollini onions, etc.  And of course, last years plants did great this winter (or lack of).  Freebies and trades for the win!