Sunday 31 May 2015

End of May Garden Review


It's been raining since last night and it was still drizzling as I took these photos.  But I wasn't sure if it would improve at all and I really wanted to get a snapshot of the garden for the end of the month.  I often want to compare year over year and realize that I don't always take photos of the entire view.  So for the sake of my own documentation, and if you are at all interested, here is what's going on in my yard today.

I haven't bothered capturing the fruit trees, fruit bushes or flowers (other than when they are interplanted) - perhaps another day soon.  I really just wanted to get photos of the vegetable, herb and greens gardens.  To avoid making this comment on every single picture, I'll just say it once now ... many of them are terribly overgrown with weeds, but also with grass that is growing up through the soil.  I'll pull out what I can over the coming weeks but will have to do a really good turnover of the garden in the fall to try to eliminate as much of the grass as I can.

So onto the photos ... lots of photos (maybe 30?!) so I'll just use the caption field to identify what's going on rather than lengthy descriptions.

Top to Bottom: asparagus, lavender
(just planted so not visible), rhubarb

Asparagus ferns staked up

Old 3 sisters garden, slow to grow: ruby red chard,
italian salad blend, beets, curly kale, tsoi sim

Jerusalem artichokes
1 of 30+ potato plants (I still have a bit of cleanup
to do of frost-bitten leaves from last weekend)

2 of 6 squash or pumpkin plants in year old straw bales

Mouse melon in year old straw bales

Tarragon at the back end, arugula at front
 and various greens in between

Garlic at top end of picture,
then various greens

3 kinds of bush beans: black turtle,
 delinel and royal burgundy

Gypsy broccoli, jade cross brussels sprouts
(front: perennial flowers)

Red Russian Garlic

Red Russian Garlic

Messy bed of parsnips

Strawberries and more Red Russian garlic

Strawberry
Nutri-red carrots and rainbow blend of carrots
surrounded by onion sets

Sugar Ann Snap Peas

Just planted: tarbais and scarlet runner beans,
 nantes carrots, merlin beets (marigolds in front)

Hard to tell but this is a tomato patch (that's one of my pallet
shelves  turned on its side for a tomato 'cage'


Tomato plant
Messy bed of various onions

New Egyptian walking onions

Music garlic

new hay bales with cukes & summer squash

New 3 sisters garden

Golden Bantam corn

Various winter squash

Various sweet and hot peppers to remain in pots

Tomatoes in greenhouse (one pepper plant in front centre)

one of several pepper plants in greenhouse

Bed in greenhouse - leftover greens and newly
planted flowers at bottom


new garden bed w/ calla lilies in back,
 then kohlrabi and endives

6 comments:

  1. What a great overview of your garden! I hear you on the grass & weed encroachment - you would never even know I had placed mulch down in some of my paths with the 2' tall grass growing everywhere right now. As soon as I get everything planted out (the biggest priority right now!), that is the first thing I'm going to focus on.

    I tried to document the garden with photos before starting my blog, but would often take a bunch of photos early in the season & then completely forget to keep up with it. Blogging has turned out to be such a great pictorial journal of what happens in the garden.

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  2. I hate grass. In this garden I don't have grass touching anywhere except maybe behind my neighbor's fence. It makes my life so much easier. I still get seeds blowing in though. You just can't get away from it.

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    1. Unfortunately, I started with all grass and covered it with gardens (cardboard, mulch, soil). I'm hoping eventually to rid myself of grass anywhere nearby but I suspect it will take several years!

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  3. Wow, you have so much going on, I really enjoyed seeing this. It reminds me of my plot plus I have grass encroachment too, it's a real pain. Allotment life would be much easier without it, although it's good for cutting as mulch.
    I've got several more squshes and cukes waiting to be planted out but haven't had chance to prepare the beds yet. I also found two of my 3 gherkin plants demolished by snails today but luckily have two spare to replace them (and I think I found the culprits aswell. )
    Your garlics look very healthy, lovely.

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    Replies
    1. I agree, your allotment reminds me of my own space here. I still have a bunch of extras (tomatoes and some peppers) as well - I might have to bite the bullet and toss them. I think I have plenty already!

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    2. It's hard when you've put all the effort into nurturing young plants and seedlings to get rid of them isn't it. Luckily my next-door-but-one neighbour needed some tom plants so I gave my spares to her. And I have a bit of a sad aubergine that someone at work will have (he had completely no luck with germinating so is happy with anything!)

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