How Does Your Garden Grow?

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Mid summer update - Looks can be deceiving!

While our garden looks somewhat fuller and lusher than it did a few weeks ago, below the surface, things are not panning out quite as well as I'd hoped.

We were pretty excited about our carrots but when we finally pulled one of the 'bigger' ones out, it turns out to be little pipsqueak. It's a tad small for Kieran, who polished it off in one bite!

I haven't figured out what went wrong, but I suspect that soil is part of the equation. Anne has a basil experiment in her garden that demonstrates this well. Another somewhat supportive experiment is that Maria has the exact same tomatoes as us yet hers are probably four times the size. I know for a fact that she has first-class soil (though of course this is not a controlled experiment - many other differences too!).

Despite our rather measly yield, I'm still pleased to have the occasional snow pea (probably a dozen or so by now but dwindling); and to be able to harvest greens and kale for to freshen up our salads.

We are also excited about our strawberry basket, which has the beginnings of a berry or two. Fingers crossed that with enough water and sunshine they will up red and juicy!

baskets

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Some success and some lessons

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Some success and some lessons

Grannie Annie, a gardening aficionado visited this weekend and helped me to take stock of our garden. I'm such an amateur that I don't even know what success looks like unless it's staring me in the face.
On the bright side, we tasted our first peas and they were delicious, and also harvested some of our mesclun greens, which appear to be doing well. On the not so bright side, I learned that our radishes and spinach are basically a bust, exhibiting what Anne called 'bolting'. Thus, we pulled them out and made room to use the space for something else, starting with our potted tomatoes, which Anne informed me were beginning to look cramped in their pots.

We read a bit about the bolting phenomenon for radishes and learned that common causes are warm weather and/or not enough direct sun. Another cause is planting too densely, which I suspect may have contributed in our case, as little hands eagerly dumped seeds.

Sunday, June 1, 2014

My first attempt at chronicling our family's garden.

Our garden


Three varieties of tomato	Radishes	Bordeaux Spinach
Mescluns	Lettuce	Carrots
Sugar snap peas galore!	A closer look at snap peas	Our first pod
Herbs galore	Mojito mint :)	Kale and chives taking off
Strawberries 1	More strawberries (we hope)