Garden Pictures

What a difference 4 weeks makes! This first picture was taken just about 4 weeks ago. You can see the peas, freshly cropped by the now deceased woodchuck #1. The onions and the tomatoes are in the background. The cord is strung for the tomatoes to climb towards, and their lines are in place to start winding around them as they grow.

This second picture, not quite in the same spot, and in need of some clouds to cut down on the contrast, shows the onions - completely overshadowed by the tomatoes that have grown well over halfway up their lines, and the pole beans right to the top and looking for more.

When it does cloud up, I'll take another picture, but I really wanted it to be as accurate to the day as possible. And hopefully, I'll remember in another 4 weeks, so show how tall everything has gotten.

I have tomatoes, the beans are blooming, and I could start harvesting onions and beets if I wanted. But, I'll let them continue growing and hopefully be able to can some beets and use the onions in bread and butter pickles. I used shallots last year and the pickles were just flat.

I use a highly modified gardening style. It's no-till and sort of layered. All of it is less than 3 years old, and most of it is only a year or less. I've tripled the size by putting layers of grass clippings from a local lawn service and composted leaf mulch from the town. Some of it has a layer of chicken bedding from my brother's, but that has only just started sprouting it's harvest of herbs, spinach and beans.

I use some "square foot gardening" techniques, but so many garden plants just can't be planted that way, so it isn't purely that style. The beets and the bush beans are planted that way. However, the Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, peppers, pole beans and peas aren't. Nor are the onions, but only because they do well planted with the tomatoes to help ward off fungal disease.

But this does allow me to have a fairly compact setting in which to gain the largest harvest.

Since the beans aren't ready to harvest yet, I can breathe for awhile. Hopefully I'll be able to finish mulching, as I've put another layer of grass clippings down in the walkways, and as close to the plants as possible, with some of it finished off with a layer of leaf mulch. I've run out at the moment, so will have to wait a few days to get another couple loads.

I do enjoy my life.