Mary Mary, Quite Contrary. . . .

How does your garden grow? Quite well thank you!

I thought today that I’d give you a good look at how my gardens are doing. Tomorrow (or possibly Sunday-depending on how busy I am!) I’ll be talking about how frugal all of this really is, or isn’t. . . .

Here is the front flower bed with the petunias in it. I started these from seed using the “winter sowing” method (see this and Here is a closeup of the candytuft, especially for Mom2Fur, who was wondering along with me what they were going to look like.

Here is part of the front bed. By the “garden gnome” you can see some tallish plants, those are zinnas that I also started with winter sowing. The splash of purple to the left is more petunias. The white and burgandy are storebought wax begonias (which are almost impossible to kill, even when I lived in alabama and everything died from the heat)

Here is the other front bed. The petunias in the middle are starting to show some color, as are the nicotania. The red you see are store bought wax begonias that I have yet to get out of the six packs. The rest of the green growth are the other winter sowing flowers, which are getting quite lush, but not flowering yet.

Here are my sweet peas, also started from seed via winter sowing. The flowers are pretty, but I didn’t realize that they would only be at the top. What is really wonderful about these are the lovely scent-and they are right by the door where I smell them whenever I come in or out. Ummmm.

These two green plants are the ground cherries that I planted. For a long time they didn’t look like they were growing at all. Now they are getting pretty sturdy! Yeah! I was worried that they were a lost cause, especially when something started nibbling on them. I probably am going to put tomato cages around them for support.Here is one of the tomatoes I planted on the side of my house in a “non-traditional” spot, right next to some pretty lilies. This one was bought from the nursery, so it is a little farther along in the game. Notice the green tomatoes on it!!!Here are the other ones I planted alongside the house. I haven’t been weeding back here. I need to. (the tomatoes are tied to bamboo poles)

Here is the actual square foot garden. Pretty eh?

The “new” bed. L to R in the front are the slo-bolt lettuce (which is nice, big and crispy-I’m going to try making asian lettuce wraps with them) then a pepper, then some bush beans, and then parsley. In the back are the violet podded stringless beans going to town up the strings. Sort of in front of the beans on the left iw swiss chard. Everything else you can’t really see from this angle.

Arial view of part of that same bed. I wanted to show you the back corner here because it has my “New Zealand Spinach” a heat loving spinach alternative. Also along the side there you can see my basil. Maybe this year I’ll actually get around to making pesto. . . .

The “old” bed. You can see a few beans on the left, the the peas alon gthe back, with some more string beans right in front of them. Then the light grayish on the left is 2 cabbages. The greenery on the left and right front are turnip greens. The red blossom you see is nasturtiums. I have some empty ground that I will be planting with some of my fall crops soon.

This is my winter sqush planter, with a couple of swiss chard in the center. Here you can finally see the “figure 8” configuration I am using to try to give the vines some room to spread. We shall see!

The melon planter. I sort of went overboard with the melons. I probably need to give them more fertilizer to make up for the fact that there are too many plants in a small space. A bunch of them had looked as if they were dying, so I planted more, and now they all are doing well. I guess there are worse things than a glut of melon. Like say, a glut of zuchinni. . . . .

This is my new mini compost that we are using while we let the other pile “cook” this summer. I finally realized that if I kept adding to the original pile I would never actually get a chance to use it.

My potato tire tower. I put the second tire on but haven’t filled it in with dirt. I had to actually buy some bads of topsoil at walmart. Thats one of the problems with living on a subdivision. . . I probably could have gotten free soil from someone, but the logistics involved were just too much for me right now. And I only paid $1.66 per 40 lb bag. . .

This is the asparagus trench I dug and then had no asparagus plants to put in it. So my 2 eggplants (on the left) and 4 red cabbage seem to be doing well. Next spring it really is being turned over to asparagus.

Here is princess’s garden, planted up with the seeds she started at the free farm days at the mall, and some other seeds she started when I wasn’t looking down with my indoor started plants. Isn’t it sad that her zinnias look bigger and busher than mine?

And that she already has a little baby cucumber???
The original compost with a gourd (foreground) and acorn squash (back) planted in it. They seem to like the nice fertile compost!

Here are 2 other planters with summer squash. The one in the foreground is the vining Trombucio squash (spelling???) except it doesn’t seem to be vining much yet. The other is pattypan (or flying saucer) squash-I bought those 4 seedlings from the nursery.

Here are my chives (left) and lovage (right). I was excited to find the lovage at the nursery this spring. It is perennial that tastes just like celery. Since celery is such a pain to grow, I thought this was extra wonderful! Now I can have celery flavor in my soups, salads, stuffing etc without the work!

Here is a view of the window boxes on the deck from below.

Here they are at eye level. I planted the wax begonias (from the nursery) for color from above, then the scarlet runner beans for food and trailing vines. You can see some of their pretty flowers. Howevery I had a technical difficulty. The runners didn’t seem to want to grow down. So I weighted then each down individually with wooden clothes pins. But when I took them off, this happened:They just started growin up again! I guess they only grow up, not down. So I’m thinking that I probably will set them on the ground at the base of the deck and run strings up for them to grow up. Oh well, this is a learning experience. So that’s it, my garden tour. It is amazing how much you can fit in a suburban lot if you get creative.

Oh, and if you are thinking “How does she have time to do all this”, well, it’s because I let the house be a wreck!