Monday, August 3, 2020

How Does My Garden Grow


Does it seem like all I ever write about is food? Yeah, pretty much.

However!

I used to write more about where my food came from, in the form of somewhat frequent garden updates. I sort of got out of the habit of bringing my camera outside to document the growing things, though. But really, is there anything more entertaining than looking at other people's weedy gardens?*

Of course not. So I took my camera outside to give you a (partial) pictorial tour of our sprawling gardens. Let's go!


The second round of Megaton cabbages are just starting to make heads, nestled in their bed against the house, where they get slightly less sun and slightly more water from roof run-off.


The tomato plants got WAY BIGGER than I expected this year. Much bigger than last year, which means I didn't put in big-enough supports to tie them to. There are a LOT of tomatoes on those nine plants and I am so excited for a glut of tomatoes in a few weeks. Barring any catastrophic hail storms, which is a definite possibility here.


After a complete failure transplanting the Moon and Stars watermelons we started indoors, A. put the rest of the seeds in containers against the house, and now we have three fairly large watermelons growing in there. These siblings might have to get moved apart somehow as they get bigger.


This is the backyard garden. The tomato plants are to the right of where I'm standing, and the cabbages are to the left. In those classy tires are some banana peppers A. bought from a nursery. There are a few lettuces among the peppers, and the various kinds of winter squash are, of course, taking over everything. Next year I am NOT putting ANY squash back here. 


Another planting of winter squash. A. stuck these seeds in the ground against that wall in January, just to see what would happen. You can see what happened. Squash really likes it here. There's also a fig tree in that circle of rocks that has about half a dozen figs on it.


Why, is that more squash? YES, YES IT IS. We put these in to see if squash would grow in our back pasture, where there is no shelter from the brutal sun and wind. And the squash said, "BRING IT ON."

There are some more things I didn't take pictures of: basil, green beans, carrots, asparagus, a volunteer watermelon in the backyard that A. is very enthused about.

And! We just pulled out the old Megaton plantation to make way for new beds of carrots, snow peas, sprouting broccoli, and collards for the fall. We hope.

I might have to bring the camera out again for Round Two. Get excited.

*It's actually probably more entertaining to look at those perfectly mulched and mostly weed-free gardens, but much more relatable to see people growing food in the midst of the encroaching weeds. And I am nothing if not relatable, right? Right.

11 comments:

Gemma's person said...

More right than you know!

Anonymous said...

All that sun! And I don't understand how kochia can survive on zero water, but it does.

I never do a good job of judging future size of squash/watermelon/cucumber plants. They just take over every single year. D'oh.

Karen.

tu mere said...

Awesome. You can hardly see the tires with all the green. Eat up!

Kristin @ Going Country said...

Karen.: I actually took these on a cloudy day. :-) Thank you for identifying that weed for me. I never knew its name, but now that I do, I looked it up and found that it's particularly good forage for animals. Which I actually knew, because the horse and the sheep will eat it in favor of the garden plants.

mil said...

I have lots of squash envy today as I have detected vine borers in my kabocha squash, which I operated on earlier in the year and must operate on again. I HATE vine borers. I did harvest three nice Middle-eastern little cucumbers today; French breakfast radishes are growing nicely, a few more onions are ready to be pulled and cured, and a lovely little tomato is sitting on the kitchen counter. My Middle-eastern kousa squash is coming nicely, too. I believe that starting watermelon under a cloche might work; all the cucurbits dislike being transplanted.

Anonymous said...

I love your garden!
Linda

sheila said...

I love any garden, weeds and all. I have a tiny backyard and lots of shade. Therefor most of my garden is in pots on the sunny deck. Getting lots of veggies and the hummingbirds love the flowers.

Mary W. said...

Do the stones around the fig protect it in the winter?

Kristin @ Going Country said...

Mary W.: Yup. A. covers it with an old down mattress pad over the stones in the winter.

Daisy said...

It looks great! My garden is much smaller, and in a much colder climate, of course. I have more lettuce than we need because when I planted, (sniff, sob) we still had a pet rabbit. Now the lettuce is growing like crazy, and only the humans are eating it. Oh, well.

Say, are people going all apocalyptic crazy for canning supplies in your area? I'm glad I had a few extra. Store clerks laugh when I ask for canning supplies, especially lids.

Kristin @ Going Country said...

Daisy: I don't think so. I bought some wide-mouth pint jars with lids at the grocery store last week for sauerkraut, and it looked like things were mostly in stock.