Here we have the two remaining 4'x4' raised beds (one recently replaced and one that needs replacing!) and one of my big tilled beds, separated into three sections with walking boards. The round bed is Zach's garden... he hasn't decided what he wants to plant there this year yet. It's fun seeing what he does with that little space.
The raised bed to the left has Oregon Sugar Pod snow peas. They're a very cool variety that only grows two feet high, so in theory doesn't need to be trellised. I love filling up an entire bed with them!
Raised bed to the right is asparagus, which I'm continuing to harvest... I *think* it's about done for the season, but I have a few shoots ready to pick right now. The plan is to build a new bed (that will look just like the new pea bed) sometime in the next week or two. The picture below came out a little blurry, but if you look hard you might be able to spy a few harvestable asparagus.
The first section of the tilled bed is fava beans! I'm almost bursting with excitement about these. The plants look a lot different than standard green bean or shelling beans. I Googled pictures and they get 2-3 feet tall and have pretty white flowers with black patches and stripes... almost pansy like.
The middle section is still unplanted, but the bed is fertilized and ready! Planning on putting pumpkins there (hopefully will plant them by the end of the week!). The end section is two varieties of tomatoes (Sun Gold cherry tomatoes and an heirloom called Gold Medal) and habanero peppers. And that's grapes to the right of the tomato/pepper bed.
Then we have the other tilled bed.
Back section is more tomatoes. This time Sweet Million cherry tomatoes and Whopper big beef tomatoes, both from Park Seed. Planted these guys last year too and had the *best* and biggest tomato harvest ever. Bonus is that I had seeds left over from last year, so didn't even have to buy more! There's another habanero pepper plant in this bed too - that teeny little plant in the middle!
And the front section is lettuce and broccoli and cabbage. I *think* I have room to tuck another cabbage or broccoli or two in there. I also want to interplant dill in all the blank spaces as kind of a natural weed deterrent/mulch. Going to do the same with marigolds in the tomato/pepper beds. I've never tried growing broccoli before, and for some reason I haven't had much luck with cabbage in the past, but so far they look happy and healthy!
Middle empty section will be cucumbers and nasturtiums. And maybe some radishes.
On the side of the house my strawberry bed is flowering and making strawberries!
My bleeding hearts are *almost* done blooming for the season.
This is sort of garden related I guess. We seem to have a resident cardinal. He loves hanging out on our front deck and on the big shrub that's right under our picture window. We see him multiple times a day. His mate was around too for a while, but now it's just him. We're guessing she's sitting on their eggs somewhere. He keeps Ninja entertained. I took this a few minutes before posting this entry.
Oh, and one final picture of some broccoli planted from seed (they're still fairly small) and some leftover cabbage plants I bought.
Like I said, think I have room to add a few more to the broc/cabbage bed, and maybe Z will want one for his little garden?
I don't keep track of garden expenses, but pretty sure I've spent less than I usually do this year. There was my seed order from Territorial Seed back in February (always more $ than it seems like it should be!). I just added Garden Tone and Tomato Tone organic fertilizer to my beds this year instead of adding bags and bags of compost as usual. Planted my tomato and peppers from seed (some of which was left over from last year), and bought $8 worth of cabbage, broccoli and lettuce plants from the nursery. And that's it!
