Garden 2006 Growin'

I don't have any pics of this year, but my sig pic is of my youngest child, Sage, running in the garden. One of the Mamas on Parenting put it into a file so I could use it as a sig pic. We call it "Joy in the Garden."

This year:
Big Garden (about 10 raised beds)
Carrots
radishes
Leeks
Parsnips (good in soup and stew and Root Medley in the Fall)
Tomatoes, 15 different kinds at last count, from Mortgage Lifters (best tomato EVER) to Yellow Boy, to Rutger to Sweet 100 cherry, to Grape tomatoes ect
Zuccinni, two different kinds
Beans, Yellow and Green French Bush Beans and Purple, Yellow and Green French Pole Beans, I LOVE pole beans
Sunflowers
Cucumbers, two different kinds
Brussel Sprouts
Cabbage
Cantaloupe, two differnent kinds
Watermelon (I never get ANY, dh says I am an eternal optimist)
Mixed large and small gourds
Many different kinds of pumpkins
Corn (which I haven't planted yet)
Potatoes (which I haven't planted yet, as dh did something with them and the Sulphur I need to coat them with)

Many herbs, in containers outside the back door

Cherries, one sweet tree, one sour, Apples and red and black black berries

Flowers, which I am too lazy to name all of them

Pic of Sage (the kid, not the herb) in our raised bed garden in the back)
below

 

Garden from the yard the sweet cherry tree is in front of it





Sage in front of the Tipi from Beans

 

my garden is not planted in nice neat rows (I have an aversion to that, along with square bushes and such - LOL) but just haphazard groupings of things with space enough to walk between when the plants get big.

The bunnies got our corn plants.
My purple no-string beans are actually producing beans already! The other beans are blooming, but no fruit yet.
My sunflowers are taller than the kids now.
I have several types of squash/cucubrits/gourds/cucumbers coming up, not sure which is which, but they are all blooming nicely.
Carrots need to be thinned, they are coming right along and looking lovely.
a few purple onions have survived, but don't seem to be growing so well.
the spinach I planted too late is pitiful and straggly, will probably let it go to seed and maybe we'll have fresh spinach for our salads this fall.
Marigolds apparently love the weather we have had this year, we have way more of them than anything else!
Mom gave me some tomato plants (she knows my littlest one is allergic) and they seem to be doing well.
I'd have to go outside and look to remember what all we planted this year. It was the first year my kids got to help grow veggies, hoping it encourages them to eat green things!!

 

Gotta thin those carrots, or they won't grow properly. Both Carrots and Onions do best in REALLY sandy soil, they need to room to make a big tap root. If you have clay, add some sand, or next year, have your dh build some raised beds and fill them with mushroom compost, sand and topsoil. We never had good results until we started doing this.

I'm hoping Sage will eat a bean this year! Our bean plants are just babies, up here in the cold North. What kind of maters do you have, boogie?

 

yeah, we live in the land of sticky red clay. I did amend the veggie spot with all the leaves from our maple tree last fall, piled them up over the winter then dug them in real good early spring and let the worms do their thing. Mostly, I choose to grow things that like my soil, rather than attempt to change it. Sand plus clay equals concrete, don't ask how I know this, it was a hard lesson learned! Organic matter and compost is the only thing that ever helps my soil.


I have no idea what kind of tomatoes they are, probably my mom let some she got from the farmer's market rot and then grew them from saved seeds (you gotta let a tomato ferment for the seeds to germinate).
I forgot to list the quinoa and amaranth I'm growing. Not sure how well it's doing, because I have no idea what the leaves look like! I do have some unidentified plants in both my flower and veggie gardens that are definitely not weeds... holding my breath!

 

Ah, yeah, southern clay! I forgot, you don't wannt add sand to that. We have clay here, but it's DuPage clay, not as bad, I think. But, still nasty. We can add a little sand, IF we use enough organic stuff to offset it.

You need LOTS of mushroom compost, you have to have it trucked in. We have 3 compost piles and we couldn't make enough for our garden, so every 2 0r 3 year we truck in a 3 or 4 yards of mushroom compost, get the kids to bring it to the gardens in wheel barrows and Bear tills it in. It is AMAZING stuff. Our plants never grew so well before.

We also use a lot of straw to keep the weeds down. Weeds will take the water and nutrients from your soil and your plants will get more diseases. Amaranth looks like a weed, but, if I remember, it has a red stem. It grows wild around here.

 

First of all, Floyd Soul you have a kick ass garden. I like all that.

This year I expaned my garden 3 times the size, and its still small. The problem is I live in housing projects in the middle of the city so there is not much I can do unless I were to rip up every inch of my yard. However, what I did get this year is...

8 red/green bell pepper plants
4 better boy tomatoes
4 big beef tomatoes
6 onion plants (I forget what type)
4 cauliflower plants
4 broccoli plants
4 cucumber plants (I forget what type these are aswell)
A big ass rhubarb plant that I expect to get really really big over the years
4 types of lettuce
4 Jalapeno pepper plants
1 large chive plant
1 mint plant
1 chamomile plant
1 parsley plant, and various strawberry/raspberry plants along the fences.

and I think I'm forgetting some other stuff. The chamomile and mint are mixed in my regular flower garden due to space issues, but they look great along side the flowers (especially when the chamomile blooms).

I must ask for next year, is visable to grow on a hill? I have a hill in my yard that's maybe 12 feet that I could easily turn into growing space.

 

Update - 31-June-5July 2006

The vine is in bloom 05-07-06. Also, the sunflower heads are starting to turn. And the opium poppy has a bud forming. So are the unknown 'spider' plants - they have buds - so do the egg plants which also have a collection of buds at the very base center of the plant.

Here are some images...

Blue vine


Sunflower


Petunia

 

'Spider' plant


Egg plant


Geraniums


Opium Poppies