Sunday, April 15, 2012

Gardening Marathon

We put in a solid 18 hours in the yard this weekend.  Transplanting shrubs, mulching beds, weeding, fertilizing, and planting.  The garden is finally recognizable again now that the weeds are dwindling in numbers.

Those blue things are grow bags for peppers and eggplant.

This is the new blueberry bed, 14 lowbush and 4 low-high crosses are in there. 
 I left a few feet on one end for the musk strawberries when they arrive.  The lowbush blueberries are not the 2 year old transplants they are supposed to be, so since they are barely visible the company sent 18 instead of ten.  I was not planning on this number, and it will now be years before they supply any type of decent harvest so that was a disappointment.  I had to put sticks is so we know where their rows are in the bed- they are that small.

I decided to lay out the tomato cages, then stick a plant marker in to mark the plant's spot while fine tuning the garden layout today.
  Going to try growing strawberries as ground cover in one of the tomato beds for kicks.  At the very least it will serve as a source for new plants via runners.

Until this week I had herbs scattered around the entirety of the garden.  I finally dug them up and put them in one place.  This is a lousy picture, I manages to not even capture the entire bed.....there is room to put in basil, cilantro, and parsley when the time is right.  The bed currently houses lavender, rosemary, sage, oregano, thyme, fennel, chives, and garlic chives.

The chipmunk damage in all of our planting beds is extensive, they ate 80% of our hostas amongst other things.  I fear the vegetable garden may be doomed again this year as the little buggers are still everywhere, it seems the mild winter did nothing to bring their population back down to 'normal'.

  • Sowed (2) Fairytale Eggplant, and (1) Little Prince Eggplant.
  • Sowed one each of Magda and Romanesco Squash.
  • Sowed (3) Baby Cukes.
HAPPY GARDENING!!



9 comments:

Sue said...

Sounds like a gardening MARATHON. I love weekends like that after waiting forever for winter to just go away.
What a disappointment with the blueberries. I guess they tried to rectify the situation, but really??
Well, it's all looking GREAT....you guys are going to have a fine garden!
Happy Spring

Jenny Rottinger said...

Your garden looks very good after this marthon weekend! too bad about blueberries but they do grow very fast so next year they should start producing. And i'm doing the same as you with strawberries - planting all runners as ground cover and if they decide to proce then it's all good.

Annie*s Granny said...

Hey, you put in more hours than I did. Of course, I did all of mine alone, so I should get credit for double time, huh?

Your garden is looking great. I wish I had room for blueberries. I replaced my old ones with new ones a couple of years ago, and they all (both) died :-( I should have just left the old ones alone.

Kelly said...

My husband picked up three loads of mulch and he and the kids spread that while I worked in the kitchen garden. The weather was gorgeous, we are a bit sore but it was great to be playing in the dirt all weekend!

Erin said...

You have been working hard! Great idea about seeing if the strawberries will work under the tomatoes, there's usually quite a bit of space under those monsters that goes to waste. I hope your spring weather is here to stay now, ours seems to have stabilized a bit.

Kelly said...

Well Erin, today it is summer weather, though it is thankfully not here to stay.

Megan said...

I love the garden layout that you have. Great job with all of the work! Hopefully those chipmunks run away and find some food elsewhere!

Unknown said...

Great work on your garden... Your herb patch looks messy, the way it is suppose to look. I love the way it looks old and rustic.

Hope this year the chipmunks spare your garden.

Thomas said...

Nice work, Kel! Hopefully your blueberries will thrive this year. Sometimes I feel like I'm married to my plants. How else to explain why we care for some of them years before they start giving back. haha.