What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow. ~ Martin Luther

Tuesday, July 09, 2013

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I meant to do a garden post last week and when I put it off- the garden kept growing!  So much so, the photos were drastically outdated.

Then:



Now:


Then:


Now:


Then:



Now:


What a difference a week makes!  The tomatoes must have grown twice as big.  And I KNOW the corn and potatoes did!







We have harvested the disappointing crops of broccoli and cauliflower and, of course, the NOT disappointing crop of basil.  I don't know what happened with the cauliflower and broccoli.  Too much water?  Too much heat?  Different variety?  I have never grown cauliflower myself, but I HAVE grown broccoli and compared to last years' GORGEOUS heads, the crop this year is more like florets.  And in my waiting (to no avail) for them to get huge and heady, they began to mature and flower.



This was the best I got.  Poo.



And another disappointment:

Last weeks' cabbage:


Now:


Not sure if I can get them to perk up or not.  As of right now, I can only expect one nice head of cabbage. What a bummer!  :-(





But on the UP side~ We have bean flowers and squash flowers and actual, bonafide peppers!



Andrew called me out to the garden excitedly to show me a teeny, tiny pinsized baby green bean that had him over the moon.  Whenever we go ANY place, the first thing he does when he gets out of the car, is check to see what is new in the garden.  The same goes for the first thing in the morning, the first thing after quiet time in the afternoon and right before bed.  I do not exaggerate when I say he checks the garden four or five times a day.  The boy is crazy.  (I love it.)





Don't look now!  There is a cyclops in the corn!
Still not QUITE done with the hay mulch.  What a difference it makes though, huh?
Speaking of weeds, these are the weeds we pick most from the garden:



Tomato plants!  From last years' tilled up tomatoes.  Andrew thinks it is great fun to make tomato 'bouquets' for the chickens.  I don't mind it a bit- there is nothing like the scent of a rubbed tomato plant.  Weeding tomato plants is a treat for your senses.

In case you are wondering what is IN this garden o' mine and because I wasted WAY to much time doing this- I post the GARDEN PLAN.  Everything I planted in a horribly florescent, tacky, unskilled computer depiction.  Of course, without the weeds.  (In THAT way, it is quite beautiful.)



This is my second garden patch:



On the far left (and out of the frame) is the asparagus bed...it is in desperate need of hay mulch.  On the far right is the pumpkin patch.  And in between them both is a good old fashioned smattering of sunflowers and (more!) zinnias.  I anticipate many a bouquet this summer.

I might as well include the strawberry patch while I am at it-



The children were perhaps too eager when going to harvest, since most harvests were enough to fill a hand, not a pail.  You know what is worse?  I never got strawberry picking this year- which means no homemade jam.  (For shame!)



As the keen observer might have noticed in my last few posts and pictures, Judah's new 'thing' is to plop down where ever he sees me pointing my camera.  Perhaps he thinks I am trying to take a picture of him and he is just making it easy for me?  Perhaps he thinks a picture is only worth taking if he is in it.  Either way, I think it is just downright cute.

How does your garden grow?

12 comments:

Terri said...

Not at all, this year, since I never planted. I'm coming to the realization that I do NOT have a green thumb. No matter what I do and what I try, I end up with a piddly smattering of veggies.

However, looking at your garden I feel a twinge of regret that I didn't plant this year. A twinge. ;-)

Rebecca said...

Well, I am pretty sure when the time for canning comes you won't be twinging when you read my blog- you'll be cringing! :-)

mapleleafmom said...

my garden is SAD, tomatoes SAD potatoes will be better than last year..where NO plants grew...but I don't expect a large yield..my blueberries, birds ate ALL OF THEM, peaches, spiders and squirrels, strawberries...a critter ate all but 3 not quite ripe ones I stole..cukes were gorgeous but rabbits ate all my leaves,pumpkin looks great, melon I bought looks sad...2 volunteer melons looks good, asparagus, did great, surprise blackberries, good but I race the birds so not quite as ripe as I wish...my neighbours have 2 6FT tall blueberry bushes they were not picking (they didn't know they had blueberries) so let us pick them...I don't know why the birds devastated mine and not theirs...my dill in pots, great...dill in garden sad..peas were sad.

so a disappointing year..but we keep going, my flowers however rock, 3 new apple tress doing well...5 new blueberry bushes, stripped of all leaves by bunnies, still have to plant the hopefully not dead raspberries and blackberry plants.

I love your garden..

(I totally live in the suburbs in a development btw)

Miranda Hupp said...

Your land and your garden is abundantly beautiful!

I finally dug myself out of our garden mistakes and my garden is doing wonderful! I think this has been my best year yet. I desperately need to get out there and weed though!

I guess the straw we used had seeds. Who knew? The farmer I talked to said there are 2 kinds of straw and we got the bad stuff. Well bad for keeping down weeds since it creates weeds. :)

Scott M Terry said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Leah said...

We had grand plans for our garden this year. But one thing after another has prevented us from planting much. Sigh. In the long run it may have been for the best. Our future is looking a bit uncertain at the moment so... We did get some tomatoes and peppers planted. We also planted some beans and basil. The garlic we planted last fall was looking good last I heard and should be harvested soon, I think. For right now, though, I'm enjoying our sweet baby boy who is already almost a week old!

Scott M Terry said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Leah said...

Oh, I forgot to mention a book that you might want to read. It was just published so you might have to ask your librarian about purchasing it for your local library. Scott got a review copy of it in the mail on Monday. So far, he is really enjoying it. I plan to start reading it myself soon. It is called The Resilient Farm and Homestead: An Innovative Permaculture and Whole Systems Design Approach by Ben Falk. It contains "practical information on landshaping, water security, perennial crops, soil fertility, nutrient-dense foods, and more".

Bonnie said...

Oh my what a difference! Looks like the walk-ways are working well, and tomato weeds I think I would welcome...
I've been trying to a take a garden photo or 6, but it is so darn rainy...

Rebecca said...

Mapleleaffarm- I am SO impressed with all you have/do in a suburb! That is so great! It is stinky about the birds, but really- the flowers HAVE to ease some of the blueberry ache.

Miranda- I always use HAY and not straw (straw doesn't have seeds at all, hay does.) and it STILL works for me. This year, I even used almost FRESH hay (though with trepidation) and it still seems to work. I think the key is, though, to put it down heavily. Your garden looks GREAT.

Leah- you have your hands full already! Be thankful for the smaller workload of garden chores! I'd love to hear more about that 'uncertainty', if ever you have an opportunity to catch me up. Kiss that little patriot for me---when do I get to see pictures?

Oh-and thanks for the book recommendation!

Bonnie- yes- DO! I wanna see! And yes, the walkways are working out REALLY well!

BajaManna said...

I'm late on reading this post, but I wanted to congratulate you on having at least one future farmer in the family (4x/day! Impressive!). Here in Mexico we've already harvested one set of plantings (beans, eggplants, kale, lettuce, tomatoes) plus passion fruit, plantains, and pomegranates. Our kale is still going strong and we're about to plant tomatoes, arugula, chard, beans, and radishes.

Abigail said...

Your garden is charming and lovely and bursting and...I don't want to look at another picture. Not one. :)

I was reading your blog to avoid going back out in MY garden, sword and javelin in hand, to wage war on the weed-beasts that swamped the thing while we were on vacation, so this post just made me grumpy. Happy for you! Grumpy for my lazy, heat-strok'ed self.