Garden July 4th Week, 2018

Garden 

July 4th Week, 2018

I thought I would post a few garden pictures separate from my updates.  I like to go back and look how my garden was doing last year, in the same week, to compare and this will make it easier for me to do next year!!!

This week I thinned out LOTS of Swiss Chard, but it still looks fairly full.  I will repeat Chard next year, for sure.  I really like having a whole bed of it.

We brought up some of our Blackberry bushes when we moved here from Indiana, not a lot, just a few, but they continue to multiply like crazy.  This year I tried to move all of it out of our left bed and replanted it on the right, inside the gate.  What little was left behind on the left has gone crazy and has spread out.  I'm still finding new baby Blackberry sprigs coming up in our herb garden.  I don't know how it spreads so easily, but I am glad!  I'll have a bunch to round up and replant...if only I knew where I want the Blackberries to be planted permanently!  They need a home for the long term.

Giz brought me up a section of her Peony plant, Dh adores Peonies, and I'm protecting it with the umbrella while it goes through its transition.

Like the chard, I really thinned out both kales in this bed, but it still looks pretty full.

This is the newest bed we made a few weeks back and planted with Yukon Gold potatoes.  They are coming up fast!  It has been SO very dry, I'm having to water a bunch.  We have two other varieties of potatoes growing in other beds as well as this one.  We really like potatoes!!!

This spring I researched how to properly prune our grape vines and it has made a HUGE difference.  Normally we would get just a few grapes, this year we will be able to can them---maybe a grape jelly?  We brought our little vine from our home in Indiana too---it has adjusted very well here.  We are still planning on building a real trellis for it somewhere on the other side of the house for its permanent home. 

Here is our new 'inside the garden' double size raised bed.  It is doing well.  The cardboard egg rack was to get some spinach seed grwoing.  I tried putting seed in the cardboard and then just in the dirt beside it to do a little experiment to see which would sprout more spinach.  Well, both actually failed.  I think I had 3-4 sprout inside the cardboard and 3-4 sprout outside it---but the kicker is that I probably used 30 seeds.  This was new seed too.

The first bed, by the house, is the "herb bed" with asparagus and herbs, then the "spinach bed," then the "lettuce/tomato/green bean bed."

Close-Up of the Herb Bed, Mammoth Basil, Sage, Strawberry plants in view.

A week or two ago I spotted these two new blackberry sprigs poking through the grass by the Herb Bed.  I'm glad to see them, but, they will have to be moved eventually.

Counting My Blessings
I'm so thankful to be able to hang my laundry outside and grow nutritious food in my garden while enjoying the sights and sounds of the woods.  In our last home, in Indiana, we were not allowed a clothesline in our yard so I had to put up an umbrella clothesline inside my bedroom.  I'm so glad I don't have to follow all those crazy HSA rules any longer!!!   

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