What's going on in the garden?

A (mostly) monthly check in.

Kitties would like to go in the garden, but will settle for sleeping.

I bought these boots last year and they were a good investment.

One corner of Leo's yard. The birch tree is growing, that swath of green you see is a whole lot of lettuce and in the foreground are newly planted nasturtiums.

From the other angle, more nasturtiums in the foreground (I over planted) Dinosaur Kale in the foreground and that's corn along the fence.

This hill will hopefully be a spot for squash. The California poppies and bachelor buttons have self seeded from last year. This year I will try to collect some seeds so I can direct the seeding next year.

Swiss Chard in the back, beets in the middle, Nasturtiums in the front. That Swiss Chard was transplanted to that bed on 5/24 and it just stayed about 3 inches tall for a very long time. Cold, cold spring.

It's bigger now.

Aside from the fact I planted too much, the lettuce has been a shining star. In the front is Furellenschalus, which is quite pretty. In the back is Deer Tongue.

I thought Furellenschaulss was a strange German word until I realized it was "For Ellen Schlauss" Very clever.

Another close up of Deer Tongue

I've not had the best success with squash and now I think I know why. It always grew pretty well until mid-summer and then sort of fainted like a southern bell with her stays too tight. Vern Nelson tells me that squash are thirsty beasts and need a drink every day. So I've followed his advice and set up these milk jugs to pour water into every day to give the squash a drink. The only other problem may be that the soil didn't warm up until just recently, so I don't think I have enough season left unless we have a long, hot summer that extends into mid-October and the rains don't come until November. I am not at all confident that this will come about. Next year I have plans for a cold frame and a much, much earlier start.

Beets.

More squash hills

Onto the backyard. The cherry tree is blocking most of the view from the back corner now. Alas, it was not a good year for cherries.

Columnar Apple tree and the future raspberry space.

Framework for the Belgian Fence. Because the apple trees are not yet supposed to be planted, I'm utilizing the Belgian Fence for the tomato plants and the boarage I have planted to attract bees and increase the tomato production.

From the corner by the compost we can see the contorted quince in front left, being overtaken by radish gone to seed. There are nasturtiums planted around the blueberry plants and the peas are climbing up the trellis. I did well with peas this year.

A view of the strawberry (excellent harvests also) and the asparagus fronds.

I had some extra room on this row and so some nasturtium and calendula were planted here.

A close up of the tomato plants.

Close up of the strawberries. They are Seascape and delicious.

A close up of the peas. They are about done for the season.

More peas.

This year I harvested a full pound of asparagus in my two week harvest period! Next year I get to harvest for four weeks!

Flowering radish, the trash can with a failed attempt to grow potatoes in (I forgot to figure out where the dirt to fill the trash can would come from.) We've also transitioned our compost from the black metro compost bin, to the metal canned Compost Digester I made using instructions from Seattle Tilth. The advantage of the digester is that you don't mix in the browns, just throw all your scraps in there and the bugs go to work. The Metro bin will get moved to the side of the house for carefully mixed compost making.

A close up of the nasturtiums with the blueberries and a very large dandelion.

I've been using the laundry detergent containers to water the blueberries while they get established. They each have a tiny hole in the bottom to dribble the water very close to the plant.

Both columnar apples. They need to be pruned, which is on the menu for July. I missed the window last year.

Moving on to Emilia's yard, we can see a bed waiting to be dug, and two beds, one with wheat/corn and one with wheat. In the back of the picture is the rain garden, which has been planted with corn, in addition to the rain garden plants.

Corn has also been planted on the side yard and there are three squash hills.

A view of the rain garden and the asparagus mound. I thought all the asparagus died, so I started piling on the pulled weeds, to compost on the mound, but that amount of mulch gave the asparagus reason to live and several shoots have appeared.

Close up of corn. This is a heirloom variety that is to be used for polenta. I'm also growing it for the stalks. They will be used to make compost.

Corn in rain garden.

Wheat. This may just get used as carbon for the compost. Or I may extract the wheat for the wheat berries. It kind of depends on how busy my autumn is.

The asparagus mound/weed storage area.

Careful watch by a kitty.

Sentinel elected to stay in bed.