We had some good old fashioned thunderstorms the past couple of days that passed directly over us. I had left an empty cup outside on the table, not really intending to use it as a rain gauge, but that's what happened. We accumulated over two inches of rain in the cup. While I don't know how "accurate" that is, that amount is quite a bit more than the weather station's 0.3" measurement that is just up the road from us. Nonetheless, everything is well watered for the start of July and in anticipation of July 4th Fireworks. The past few days, I could not really get any good photos of the gardens and plants. Today is a catchup for that with an addendum to the square garden post of a few days ago.
Starting with the square garden area. The beans need a good dose of fertilizer.
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| A couple of the Bush Bean Plants |
I attempted to take photos of the basil and thyme, but they are still just too small for a clear shot. I can only find three basil in the garden! There are about twenty of the thyme, so that will definitely be thinned out. I planted three more basil in hopes that they come up. But it is a bit late in the season for planting basil outside. We will see.
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| Tiny Basil from Overhead |
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| Tiny Basil from Side |
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| Even Tinier Thyme |
And with the forest of carrots, I'm still trying to get carrot sprouts pulled out from everything else.
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| Yep - Carrots scattered Every Where! |
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| Carrots or Dill? Hard to Tell! |
As you can tell that I'm still thinning out the over scatter of carrots between the rows, but a few more days and we should be on track.
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| Two Distinct Carrot Rows, finally. |
A close up of the carrot rows shows the gaps that need to be filled back in with new seeds.
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| Sparse Carrot Rows |
But, hey, the first of the radishes are really to be pulled and pickled.
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| Some Radishes are Ready |
I was reading about Square Foot Gardening, and how they plant everything within a square foot section of the garden, depending on what the plant was. Like planting 16 radishes in one square foot space, and one tomato plant in a 1 square foot spot.... and then they used vermiculite in the soil to keep it more moist, and I thought what? Why use vermiculite when so much of it has asbestos in it. How are they going to guarantee that the vermiculite doesn't have asbestos in it when 75% of all vermiculite in the US has asbestos in it, naturally? Um... No Way! Plus the raised beds were only about six inches deep so how would one grow the plants that need deep soil like onions and potatoes, or those plants that spread out all over like squash and cucumbers? I think my bucket garden is akin to the Square Foot Garden, plus it is portable when necessary, fits easily into the green house when needed, etc. That's just me thinking out loud there. Sorry about that.
Moving to the Potato Barrels - they have sprouted up for the last time and now that the blossoms have fallen off, the foliage will start to die back in prep of getting our much anticipated potato crop. With the cooler weather, on and off again, it has actually been helpful for extending the season to allow the potatoes to get a bit larger. I am hopeful that we get a lot of nice-sized potatoes this year.
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| The last Spurt of Growth. |
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| Blossoms are all gone. |
Now the Corn Patch which has more foliage, but not much more height as we head into July. The PVC is strateglically placed to ward off the animals that like to barge through the stalks. Once they are tall enough, I won't need the PVC distractions.
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| Corn Patch with Animal Deterrent. |
As for the bucket garden, the bell peppers are picking back up after that hail storm of early July.
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| Sweet Bell Pepper |
The three types of lettuce are progressing: Grand Rapids, Butter Crunch, and Red Sails (left to right, in that order, I think). I did not plant spinach this spring. I will plant it later in the summer. I should probably try to plant a few more Red Sails and Grand Rapids seeds to fill in the empty areas.
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| Grand Rapids & Butter Crunch |
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| Butter Crunch & Red Sails |
The earlier planted cucumbers are truly growing quicker than I anticipated. The recent "replants" of the cukes are still pretty small but do seem to be working on survival, as long as the animals stay away. I have the baby cukes closer to the house.
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| Baby Cuke Plants |
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| English Cucumber |
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| Better Photo of the Onion Flowering |
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| Oregano getting ready for 2nd harvest. |
Here's an angle shot of the tomatoes, more bell peppers, cucumbers, the start of the green house addition and the square garden in the back, protected with fencing from the blasted deer, dogs/coyotes, and bunnies.
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| Angle Shot of plants, green house, addition and garden. |
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| First Wall of Green house Extension. |
And that, for the most part, sums up our crazy micro garden journal thus far in 2019.
Square Garden June 30 - update photos.
Now that I have it all weeded AND all the scattered carrots pulled, we can actually see some of the plants :) So the first two are facing south, with the bush beans at the top and the carrots at the bottom of the photo (top photo is listed and circled). The last photo is facing north with the radishes at the top, then the two rows of sparse carrots. Either direction, it is difficult to see the still very tiny thyme, but there are lot of them which will be thinned out in a few weeks.
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| Most of the crop - facing south Listed/ and/orCircled |
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| Same - beans, dill, basil, thyme, carrots |
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| North - radishes, carrotsx2, thyme, basil |
