Getting there

I got the leeks in yesterday.  I'm not sure it was the best place to put them,  right in front of the potatoes...
in the 18 inches behind the potatoes i planted some striped maize.  Japonica striped maize to be specific.  However i was being watched closely by a perky, gray Catbird and i'm not sure if she's going to undo my work.

Lack of room seems to be this year's gardening theme.

When i run the rows North to South instead of East to West i lose a few feet on each row so i have less room. But i do it to enforce a fairly consistent crop rotation thing.  This year, as usual, i overbooked my space. Turns out that the almost complete failure of the root crop row has freed up some space for some of that overbooking.  I put in a whole row of sunflowers there.  In between the sunflowers,  i tucked in the broccoli.  The sunflowers look good,  but the broccoli are pathetic. Barely 3 inches high and a malnourished color.  Most of my seedlings spent too much time languishing in the seed flats with either too much water or too little and fertilizing attempts were somewhat wasted when the trays overflowed with rainwater and roots suffered further when they didn't properly drain.

I got the rest of the squashes in and most of the herbs.  There's a couple flat-leaved parsley, a few lettuce-leafed basil and some pathetic looking Red Russian kale.

This is what i am doing to try and contain some of the overflow.

SOme herbs, some chinese cabbage, assorted salad greens seedlings, flowers and a few pots of herbs i just seeded. I realized with annoyance yesterday that i have no more cilantro seeds.

The tomatoes are looking great. They need pruning and i have to get them staked and twined.  That is planned for today.

Eggplants and peppers.... The peppers already have blooms and little fruit started.

Freshly planted ornamental sunflowers:

A couple broccoli plants tucked in among them.   I didn't want to put the broccoli on plastic. They are heat stressed enough and i don't think broccoli likes the extra heat from the plastic later in the season.

The beans are looking good.  Wish i had allowed room for another row of them.  I might be able to sneak some in on the other side of the cuke/melon row....  early enough so they won't get shaded out?

I have seeds for Yard Long beans.  I read a lot that vining beans are room savers,  but the trellising and staking seems to be beyond my ability to plan for,  so it never happens.  Instead of bush beans i just might sneak in a few yard-long seeds behind the melons....



a little while later....

Tomatoes,  Pruned, staked and weaved.

Garden remix

I planted peppers and eggplant today.  I also reseeded the cukes that didn't come up.  Only thing is i goofed on them.  I was supposed to leave room for the eggplants and peppers,  but i wasn't thinking and i had to put the eggplants elsewhere.
About 6 of the beets sprouted so i just raked them over and put the peppers and eggplants there (next to the butternut squash. My parents' garden is still wringing wet, so they planted their tomatoes alongside the house and didn't expect to plant more than that-- this means i still have quite a few plants, so they took up almost half a row.  This means my bean row is not going to be as big as i planned.

So what i did was narrowed the rows of corn and added a strip of beans.  I'm still not convinced that any type of corn is going to provide much in this small garden.  If all hades breaks loose we won't be sustained by corn. It may be the Jerusalem artichokes and all the greens i can put by.  Not that i'm expecting a sudden specific calamity, but gardens are supposed to be for an independent way to save some money and be a backup plan in case of job loss etc.  Its not like the economy is going to get any better very soon.

Anyhow,  today i planted the beans and corn as well and re-did the garden map.  Watering for about 45 minutes seemed to get things moist enough.
I also put the usual cream and red petunias in the big pot next to the front steps. The one stocks seedling wen right in the center.
We saw bees all through the blueberry blossoms.  Gorgeous day to be outside.



I also spent the better part of the day with my mom.  Its been one year since my grandfather died, so we bought some flowers and plants for his grave site and paid our respects.  I'm glad i was able to spend the time with her. Its still very hard on my mom.  Both of her parents are now gone. We still have our memere who is my mother's step-mother,  though i never thought of her as 'step' anything!  She is sprightly and full of goodness. One of my grandfather's best friends stepped right in and has been a great comfort to her.  His wife was one of my memere's close friends and died recently also.  Now the two of them travel together everywhere. Is a beautiful thing!