Or Not.....

It still seems to be a better year overall for the garden, but things are going more slowly than we'd hoped. Except the beans -- we've had a bumper crop of beans, mostly the Dragon Tongue but plenty of Bush Lake as well! Banana peppers and lettuces have done fairly well, too. We've been getting lots of tomatoes but they haven't really ripened yet -- and we're having an issue with worms,which I may have mentioned before.

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.

Community Garden, Year Two

OK, so we sucked weren't great at updating the blog last year. The garden wasn't that great either, in fairness -- too much rain and too little hot. The only 'good' thing was that everyone else at the community garden said it was their worst year ever, so we didn't feel quite as bad about our own dismal yields. So, we're trying it again this year, and hopefully things will go better this time! We did move to a new plot area, on a bit of higher ground, and we opted for two plots rather than just one -- not only to spread out a bit, but because I wanted to have a little seating area so that we could sit and relax, or read, or listen to tunes, or whatever for a bit after tending to the garden. Of course with busy schedules and demands from husband, kid, and/or dog, who knows how much leisure time we'll really have (but they don't have to know watering only takes 15 minutes and not 45, right?).

How Does Your Garden Grow? Part Two

(This entry covers May 27 through June 7)

The following weekend, we hit Randazzo's for both flowers for our various homes and more veggies to finish up the family plot planting. Great selection and prices, but a total madhouse on a Sunday mid-morning! For various reasons we didn't get to the plot on Sunday, so Monday evening (after our Cardio-Boxing class) we headed over to finish up the planting. We got everything planted and ended up adding three more tomatoes (one Roma, two Big Rainbow), four cauliflower, four Brussels sprouts, nine sweet potatoes, four jalapeño peppers, three yellow wax beans, one watermelon, four more cucumber (the ones we had planted weren't faring very well), three chives, four Great Lakes head lettuce, four red leaf lettuce, four "unnamed" lettuce (had the red leaf tag but is definitely not red leaf lettuce -- we're hoping it's butter lettuce), four Swiss chard, four cabbages, several onion sets, and seeds for peas, Dragon beans, and a variety of carrots.

How Does Your Garden Grow? Part One

(This entry covers May 15 - May 26, 2013)

For Christmas 2012, my niece got my mom a space at the local community garden. (Well, OK, my niece was 3 years old, so really my sister got it, but Annabelle was keen on the idea!) It was always intended to be a family project, of course, and my mom took to telling her friends that she got "a family plot" for Christmas. (Clarifying, of course, after the deer-in-the-headlights looks and stutters and stammers as her friends grasped for a response, "no, a garden plot!". Mom likes to be clever. :) ) The name kind of took, so while we are considering an "official" name for the garden, I suspect we'll always also refer to it as the family plot.