Vegetable gardens at my house

I thought I would start my own thread on my evolving gardens. Since my journaling skills are about nil this will be a handy reference in addition to my jumble of pictures on my hard drive.

I will start way back in the beginning....of June of 2004. No fear this is just for some perspective. The bed is 12.5 x 25 feet. We had just moved in March 2004 so we got a late start. My boyfriend John did ALL the work last year. My gardening skills were on par with my journaling ones.

Most of these pictures will be taken from our deck. Our backyard slopes so it is a flight of stairs down to the garden - your choice - inside or out:)

-Kim

Here is the same garden with a view from the ground level. The door is a walk-out basement.



This message was edited Jun 21, 2005 10:31 PM

Here it is early August 2004 - notice the corn I just HAD to have -LOL

-Kim

Moving on toward the present. Here is what has happened so far this year. First off, we doubled our trouble! The second bed is the same size as the first.

Ambitious aren't we?!? It was February when I subscribed to Dave's, perhaps, just maybe, there is a correlation.... As you know Feb. is just in time for me to order seeds and get lots of good planting information. To jump start the addiction.

Here are some of my veggies (and flowers) waiting for their home to warm up! Our main crop this year as you might be able to see - is tomatoes. We also have lots of cauliflower, brussel sprouts, broccoli, bush & pole beans, edamame, eggplant, cucumber and squashes.

This tomato affinity comes from my maternal Grandmother. They had a farm in TN and as kids we would go there on summer vacations. Grandma would bake her own bread and we would eat open-faced tomato sandwiches for dinner! There was also fresh limas, corn, squash, apples, potatoes and who knows what else. This was where I was bitten by my first caterpillar (and so far-last), a big green really fuzzy one!

-Kim

Bravo to you I see a very good start well rounded and neatly kept now just be sure you keep track of where you plant your brassicas and move them every year for sure to protect from root problems because they foul their own are very quickly. Ernie

Thanks Ernie! Will do with the brassica's. We only had a few plants last year but this year lots so they will go in the lower bed next year. Uh, could you remind me? :-)

~Kim

This one was taken the end of May. We are doing the wide rows suggested in the _Vegetable Gardener's Bible_. The rows are 3 ft with 2 ft walkways. The larger middle bed is 5 feet across.

The tomatoes are in the lower bed - there are over 40 down there - can barely see them! The bed in between the tomatoes will be for beans.

The top bed on the left has carrots, radish, beets, spinach, scallions, lettuce and the eggplants are under the row cover.

The next bed with the row cover is cauliflower and ??, maybe brussel sprouts and asparagus peas. Under the last row cover you can barely see are broccoli, okra and tomatillo's.

I planted creeping thyme and golden oregano on the steps.

Wow nice eds...you have a great garden going there.

Ruthie

What a lovely view, Kim! It's gotta just make you grin from ear to ear each time you look down... and especially this year as your doubled garden grows lush and full like the first one did.

Planting an herb groundcover along the steps is a wonderful, classy touch. I like it, and look forward to watching your garden grow as much as I do mine. :)

Donna

Your garden looks wonderful! I love how it is right off of the porch - something I wish I had done when I built my beds!

Are the structures in the picture for the beans? what are they? I have never seen stakes like that, but they look perfect for the job!

Thanks everyone! We are proud of our garden and it is a personal achievement for me since gardening is very new to me. I do like to look down and I am amazed every time. Also you cannot see any bugs or weeds from up there!

The zig-zag structure in the foreground is a pea trellis and the two rear ones are pole bean trellis. We took down the pea fence, we were trying to decide if it would be useful for something. We might make a square out of it and put it around some determinate tomatoes.

Edited to say - I have been corrected. John has reminded me we took the pea fences and stacked them together to make two bean trellis. Then we took the 'real' bean trellis and made it a tomato cage. This will all come together soon....

This message was edited Jun 21, 2005 10:53 PM

This is my BF John scratching his head wondering how these small tomatoes are ever going to make it!? LOL We had just put them into the ground a week before.

In the background is my new perennial bed. John tilled and amended most of the perimeter of our fence line. Those are raspberries hanging over the fence and a teeny tiny River Birch with the red mulch around it. We got it free at the Leesburg Plant and Flower Festival in April.

Impressive, bluekat! Looks lovely, and you spaced things well. Exciting watching everything take off, isn't it?

What do you use for mulch? Compost?

Thanks Zeppy! The mulch is grass clippings. The beds are amended with peat moss, Chesapeake Blue and bonemeal.

A little out of order but here is John mowing and filling in our walkway's with grass.

Also out of order, but I thought you guys could relate. Here is me planting the tomatoes, errr, my babies:-) Notice the long sleeves- ARGH- I get very itchy after being in the sun, even with sunscreen. All those years in FL, one winter and I am back where I started. Go Figure.

Kim, keep posting those pictures, chica! I've seen those garden beds quite recently, and they are looking really impressive!!

I am getting there Critter! Dial-up ya know :( Here is one of the cauliflower and broccoli trying to escape the row covers! No I didn't make the teepee trellis-bought it! I just HAD to have the sunflower birdbath. Notice down by the shed. John tilled there also and put in the stone path.

Behind and to the right of the composters are the blueberry bushes. The yellow thing is the handle for the composter turner. They are two different varieties. One is not doing so well so this year's take has been cut in half.

Which compost turner is the "good" one? (What brand?) I keep wondering about them...

I love it all, the sunflower bird bath is my favorite!

what a wonderful garden. how i wish i could have a nice garden without putting up 7 ft. fences to keep the deer out.

Have you tried motion activated rainbird sprinklers... I always figured about 4 of those would be awesome...

The garden looks fantastic... you guys need to get some kiddies to help you out... Here are my pea pickers...

Looks like you have bunnies around there as well huh? Please keep adding to the thread as time goes on... I love seeing how things are progressing... What a fun hobby. It is really good for kids as well as it teaches them patience. I used to work in my grandparents gardens as a kid and that is why I use my garden boxes... I hated weeding! Now I hardly have any to deal with...

Drew

bluekat - nice, neat lookin' garden(s). If I had that much open space I would be in serious trouble with my DW. Keep the pics comin' . - Flip

This picture was taken June 13th. You can see we are trying several different methods of tomato support this year. Regular 60in cages, Texas tomato cages, individual stakes and the fencepost stakes with twine in between (idea from heycharlie). I am starting to realize it really paying to know your tomato when it comes to choosing support.

This year we have 24 varieties of tomatoes and 53 tomato plants. 47 are in the bottom bed, 4 in the top bed and 2 lonely ones in the side bed near the fence, you can barely see their cages.

Those are the bush beans coming up in the middle bed between the tomatoes. They are Cherokee wax (yellow), Dragon Langerie (yellow), Royal Burgundy (purple), Provider and Kentucky Wonder (both green) and a few bush lima's. On the towers are various pole beans including Speckled Lima (Christmas lima), Red Noodle and Yard long bean.

Notice the broccoli raab going straight to seed in the top bed/bottom left of the picture. I think it was in its cell too long.

The fencing in the rear of the yard is around our edamame seedlings / 2 varieties around 75 plants. There have been several groundhog sightings under and around our shed!

Stay Tuned! John and I are going to the Mid-Atlantic RU this weekend, so no updating til Monday.

-Kim

Hey kim & John
Tha word is Beautifull!

Please do keep up the pic's.
"this will be a handy reference in addition to my jumble of pictures on my hard drive."
Indeed!

I have taken more pic's this year than ever before.
There are a couple of programs I'm trying to see if I can get them organized enough to make sense.

Hope ya have a great RU...........

This one is from June 22nd. It is the bottom bed of tomatoes with beans in the middle. In the bottom left of the picture there are two sunflowers (transplanted volunteers from the bird feeder) and a couple of eggplants.

So far we have plants, blooms and bugs! Not-so-patiently waiting for fruit!

Up on the deck we do have lots of herbs and flowers in my self-watering containers. That plan is working out quite well, except for the rosemary - it had to come out- its feet were too wet. It now resides in its own little container.

There are two more containers on the other end of the deck. Here is one with thyme, Chinese parsley, Par-cel, chives, sage, stock and the orange flowers are "Orange Symphony' Osteospermum. These flowers are the best - they have been going strong ever since they were planted.

This picture is from May

This one is from June 22nd and the container is turned around; they are all on casters-Yea! Once again I underestimated their growing capabilities. In addition the Chinese parsley has gone to seed and the sage is going to overrun the chives. It is outta control in there!!

may be out of control, but it is beautiful! And they are crowding out the weeds too LOL

The fence has come down from around the gardens by the time I took this picture. Not the fence around the ill-fated soybeans in the background though. John is watering from the bottom - I asked him very nicely to water that way in the tomato bed. We use a sprinkler on the top bed with the zucchini and brassicas. Those are two of our volunteer tomatoes on the top two steps to the left.

Hey Kim John in Maryland;
Used to live in Alexandria. Have ta bragg:
-
An independent city of northern Virginia on the Potomac River opposite Washington, D.C. Primarily a residential suburb of the capital, the city has many historic buildings. George Washington helped lay out the streets in 1749. Population: 111,183.
Haha, Remember that cherry tree!

This was 50 years ago. (my time there)
There was a tree in tha middle of town, middle of tha street.

I worked for Wash. Nat'l Airlines. Name at tha time!
Times change but one thing is forever.

I had great gardens!
My babies diapers frooze on tha cloths line.
_____________

Today, here in E-Tx we done 102 with tha index of 107 but that might be an understatement. Some nice person said 110..... Oh well!

We live with what we have.
Learn where we can.
Should we create by planting a seed, what does that make us ? Lol ! So...

Charlie - Did you ever think back then you would be where you are now?!? If someone had told me a couple of years ago I would be growing vegetables I started from seeds in my own backyard, I would still be laughing at the thought. Re: seed - Why, we are transplants!

Thank you Tamara for that perspective! Every once and a while I will be deadheading or just looking at the flowers and I will see a leaf that is not like the others.... I can thank the bird feeder nearby!

bluekat76, You two have great raised bed gardens. Really enjoyed your garden seies, keep showing us the changes. I didn't see any corn this year. I live for summer and cukes, corn and tom. DonnaS

I know we were so cross-eyed with driving when we got to your gorgeous gardens that it didn't seem like we actually saw anything - but we did, and what fun to look down on the gardens as if we were Rapunzel in her tower, hankering for some forbidden treat in the witch's garden.

Well, it did seem magical. I love that castle effect of your deck's altitude. Ditto to everyone else on keeping us posted on this thread. Thanks for inviting us over.

Bluekat, Your gardens are outstanding! I was hoping to get a close up of those tomato plants you mentioned at the round-up! Are you getting any ripe ones yet? I planted pretty late this year, so my tomatos are about the size of a dime right now....
Keep us updated--it looks great.
Nancy

No ripe tomatoes yet:( They say patience is a virtue.... Here is a picture of our broccoli to keep you going until the tomatoes!

Just as a tease here are some of our composter tomatoes. We let 2 plants grow, lucky us there are two different kinds! Both are looking a little mainstream for my tastes but we shall see...errr taste.

On the groundhog front we have both positive and negative. The soybeans that were eaten to stalks are rebounding! Most have leaves again and we have put the fence back up. On the other hand our cantelope and spaghetti squash plants are gone. As in not there anymore. This groundhog also seems to like bush beans.

Yesterday I noticed the leaves of the bush beans shaking. I was up on the deck and yelled down "hey". Apparently groundhogs speak English because he stood up and I had my confirmation. I took off down the stairs yelling at him the whole way. Because our backyard is on such a slope I ran around the rear of the garden to ensure his rapid exit out of the yard and into the woods. No sign of him. I peered into the beans through the pole bean towers, that is when I almost wet my pants and we both screamed! Okay, only I screamed. He was about a foot from my face. During the ensuing stare-down while he was thinking of some way to become invisible or escape I was thinking can I scruff him? What would I do with him if I did? Why of course, throw him into the neighbors pool! Eventually I began thinking "what a frustrating twist of fate, here he is right in front of me and I can't catch him'. After contemplating each other for a while I grew hot and went upstairs to put on shoes so I could continue the chase wherever it might lead. While I was up there he decided it was safe to leave - and it was.

In retrospect, I should have grabbed the compost turner that was nearby and bludgeoned him right there in the beans. Imagine the video; not to mention the destruction to the beans. Good 'ole hindsight.

Moving on the this morning. There was a sighting in the AM on the edge of the backyard near the woods. Once again no shoes, I am seeing a pattern here.... by the time I went down, grabbing the compost turner on the way, he was gone. Could have been me or it could have been the half a dozen pinwheels spinning behind the garden - one can hope!

We harvested and grilled 8 ball zucchini, Papaya pear squash and baby eggplants to go with dinner last night - YUM!

-Kim

Here is an updated shot taken sometime around July 4th weekend. You can see most of the garden except for the right hand side of the top bed.

The bottom bed has two rows of tomatoes, 3 rows of bush beans, pole beans in the back and then 2 more rows of tomatoes.

The top bed has zucchini (on the far right that are not shown), then brussel sprouts and cauliflower you can just barely see, pole beans and cucumbers on the teepee, tomatillos in front of the teepee for some reason there are a couple of eggplants next to the tomatillos. Next are broccoli with peppers in front of them. The last row in the top bed has eggplants in the back, then beets, carrots and scallions.

The garden now has that look that says I am not in control of this ship anymore!

You get the idea. Feel free to show up for harvest!

-Kim