I got a good jump on my gardening this year, but was forced to stop because we experienced a brief heat wave earlier this week. The temperature rose up to 90 degrees and there was no way I was going to work outside in that. Early this morning, the heat moved out and the cool moved back in. It’s 68 degrees and just about perfect outside right now, so a little while ago, I finished up what I had to do. I wasn’t planning on writing a post about it, but what the heck. I enjoy taking photos of such things, so I thought I’d share them with you.
I already told you about my new garden weed barriers, so there’s not much more to say about them. The only thing I had left to do in regards to that feature of the garden was to finish cutting holes in them. I had already cut 21 holes for the one half of the garden, so today I cut the other 21. Plus an additional 10 in the center area for some lettuce to grow. Here’s a photo of the finished product. Take a look at all those areas that weeds aren’t going to grow. Again, this is probably going to be one of the most worthwhile things I’ve ever done. Just to experience the satisfaction of not having to weed is going to be rather awesome.
Here’s some Swiss chard that’s peeking through one of the holes. I’ve got a total of 14 Swiss chard plants that are growing, which means Laura, my friends, and I will be well fed this season.
And here’s some baby kale plants. Like the chard, I’ve got 14 of these growing out there, plus a few extras in a pot I’ll discuss in a moment.
On the left side of the garden, I planted some seeds right after I finished cutting the holes in the barrier. Those seeds have already sprung to life and are off to the races. On the right side, I transplanted the kale and chard from some containers that I began growing in approximately two weeks ago. I’m hopeful that those transplants take, but if they don’t, I’ve got some backups. If the backups don’t take, then I guess I’ll plant from seed directly in the garden soil. Here are some of the young Swiss chard plants that I transplanted into the garden.
As far as tomatoes go, I’ve got them too. I didn’t want too many plants this year, as the six I grew last year were a handful. As it turns out, I had 14 spaces waiting for me, so I filled them with seven tomato seeds and seven tomato transplants. Two different types; some cherry tomatoes and some medium sized ones. We’ve got so many seeds, we had to do something with them. I just need to make sure I get out there regularly and prune the bushes. They can become very unruly very quickly.
A few years back, I went a little nuts and bought a bunch of huge garden buckets. Or pails, Whatever you call them. I bought them and I’ve used them for sporadic planting. This year, since Laura had some cucumber plants ready to go into some dirt, I decided to pull the buckets out and fill them with soil. So far, we’ve got four filled and I’ve got another four waiting for me to figure out what to do with them. I have more too, but those are a bit smaller. I think these are seven gallon buckets.
Here are some of Laura’s baby cucumber plants. We’ll need to stake these plants as they begin growing. Either that, or we’ll simply move the bucket so it’s situated next to the fence. The plants will climb right up that.
I forget how large cucumber plants get, so I’m not sure if this bucket will become overcrowded.
Here are some baby beet plants that I transplanted into a bucket. I’m actually going to go plant four more plants in this one bucket when I finish writing this post. I thought these were chard as opposed to beets, and chard needs more room. Since beets primarily grow underground, I’ll have plenty of space. I hope.
This is one of the three baby kale plants that I planted in a bucket. Again, since we had the plants, I felt that I needed to use them. We’ll have tons of salad, but that’s fine with me. Maybe we’ll make a few smoothies too.
Check out how dark that soil is. That’s the good stuff. Laura bought a few bags of it just for this type of occasion.
Do you remember when I wrote a post last year about growing grapes? And about how I made my own grape juice? Well check this out. My two grape vines are growing out of control this year. Here’s one of them.
Both vines are totally loaded with tiny little bunches of grapes. These are the ones that smell so sweet when I ride past them on the lawnmower.
As you may have guessed, I plan on making another batch of grape juice this year. I was thrilled with myself because of what I managed to do last year, so I figure I’ll simply repeat the process.
Well, that’s my update for today. You can be sure I’ll give you status posts after all the plants begin growing through all those little holes. I sure do hope things turn out as I plan them to. After all, this is my first time using a barrier like this. Until next time!
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