Progress!

I don't want to jinx things, but it certainly seems as if the garden is growing much better this year than last. The straw hasn't totally kept the weeds at bay, but there are definitely fewer than we had last year, so it's more manageable. Plus the straw keeps the ground from becoming hard and compacted, so what weeds we do get are easier to pull.



We've fertilized a couple of times with Miracle Gro -- it seems to be what everyone uses -- and I dusted with the DE last week. We may spray with a cayenne/garlic/water mixture -- it seemed to work last year to keep the non-bug critters away, and I suspect we've had a few of those this year since the beans and peas seem to lose their shoots overnight! Most of our 'crops' are doing fairly well, although once again we aren't having great luck with cucumbers....

This is actually in the plot across the path; we aren't sure what they are. Best guess is a corpse flower, so we're really hoping we're wrong!

Dragon tongue beans; pretty purple flowers.

Apparently potatoes have flowers. Who knew?

We have squash this year! This is a baby spaghetti squash.

One little spinach that's holding on; the rest didn't make it. :(

Supposedly this is radish.

Roma tomato.

Cherry tomatoes.

We've had a few ripe cherry tomatoes so far. (By a few, I mean three.)

More tomaotes, these may be Early Girl.

Another tomato, either a beefsteak or heirloom variety.

And, tomato worms. :( Didn't have those last year.

The banana peppers are growing like crazy!

A few green peppers coming along.

Some onions.

Lettuces are doing quite well; the butter-type in the middle are all volunteers!

Mom fertilizing. Our plot goes from the grassy area on the lower left back to the metal poles past the white PVC frame at the top right.

Something for the peas and beans to climb, if the peas get that big! The black box in the background is my Home Depot score, picked it up for $24!

At this point we're pretty much getting into the swing of routine weeding, watering, and fertilizing. Hopefully soon we'll be able to start harvesting some of our efforts. (We have had a handful of green beans, and of course lots of lettuce.) We still need to get some chairs -- they're surprisingly harder to find than I'd thought they'd be. Once we do, we'll have a nice little spot to sit and enjoy the sunshine. (And the music of the crickets, which apparently love the straw. I've never seen so many crickets in one place in my life!)