Adventures in vegetable gardening (pt 3 of 3)

The garden is still producing, namely cantaloupe and bell peppers. Here's a recap of the bounty we received and some plans for the future.

Week 4 (04/16/12)

Week 6 (05/01/12)

My little garden helper picks our first two mature squash of the season!

Week 9 (05/18/12)

Harvested most of the lettuce. The leaves were becoming bitter, so I pulled up 2/3 of it to make more room for the encroaching cantaloupe.

Cantaloupe runners are spilling over into the yard. Do your thing, melons. Do your thing!

The bell pepper plants are budding.

And the squash will be goners soon. I didn't treat them for powdery mildew in time. I was unsure on what kind of spray to use, especially since I wanted to avoid chemicals. Someone told me baking soda and water would help, but I never tried it. Still, we harvested nearly 30 squash and zucchini before we lost the plants; not bad!

Short carrots could've been left in the ground a week longer, but my daughter and I were anxious to pick them.

Fruit tree: Mr. Mac Satsuma
Just in the nick of time, we planted a citrus tree before the summer heat hit.

The tree is pretty small right now, but will eventually have a canopy of 10 ft, which may eventually cause problems with adequate sunlight over the raised bed. But, that's several years from now, so I may change things by then anyway!

Future plans for our "backyard farm"

See the random places I planted squash and cantaloupe? I just couldn't bear to just compost them when I thinned the plants, so I gave the seedlings a shot in unamended soil alongside the house and in bare patches in the lawn. They didn't really produce, but at least I gave them a chance. In the future, I'd like to amend the soil along the house to plant lettuce (I think they were overexposed in the full sun.)

Next season, I'd love to remove the dead tree in the corner and make room for two more raised beds to plant some veggies on rotation. Maybe add another fruit tree and invest in some blueberry shrubs along the fence. A girl can dream!

My more short-term goal is to replace the failing squash plants with tomatoes for the remainder of the summer.

Read the archives:
Part 1
Part 2

Adventures in vegetable gardening (pt 2 of 3)

Planting Day (03/16/12)
I ordered seed packets from Park Seed:

• Lettuce summer glory blend (5185)
• Squash summer medley hybrid (5700)
• Zinnia (4966)
• Basil dwarf bush (0309)
• Organic Italian Oregano (5878)*
• Cilantro santo (0602) 
• Strawberry spinach (5471)*

 *Didn't germinate; replaced with seedlings 

Then I used a free garden design tool from Gardener's Supply Company to map out how I would plan the bed. I liked that the website also gave some tips for growing and harvesting.

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Week 1 (03/23/12)

Basil sprouts. Had to thin these down to only one plant because I expect it to get large.

 Cantaloupe grew quickly. Thinned to two plants.

A look at the whole garden.

Lettuce coming up strong.

Summer squash really thrives too!

My little helpers love to water (and stomp in the mud).

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Week 2 (03/30/12)

I decided to try tomato cages to support some of the cantaloupe and summer squash.

Carrots seem delicate, but are getting sturdier as they grow.

Largest plants so far are lettuce and summer squash.

Another view of the whole garden. I've lost some of the zinnias along the back row to hungry birds! :(

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Week 3 (04/06/12)

I planted the following varieties on April 1 to replace seeds that didn't germinate or young seedlings that were eaten by birds.

• Green bell pepper
• Red bell pepper
• Orange bell pepper
• Yellow bell pepper
• Oregano
• Pineapple sage

 Carrots are getting taller.

 

One of the new bell peppers.

 Lettuce varieties.

 New pineapple sage plant.

More growth!

See also:
Part 1
Part 3

Adventures in vegetable gardening (pt 1 of 3)

As you can see, last summer's drought killed much of the St. Augustine in our side yard. Rather than re-sodding this sad little sunny spot, I was inspired to start a veggie garden. It should be a better investment since we will (hopefully!) reap a bountiful harvest of fresh produce instead of watering an inevitably thirsty patch of grass over and over.

"Oh no," my husband groaned. "Another project."

But he was soon on board, like a real trooper, shoveling out the weeds and dead sod to make room for installing a raised bed. Our daughter was on earthworm patrol, pointing out all the creepy crawlies for us.

Just because I was taking photos doesn't mean I didn't put in my own sweat equity. Here's the cleared space.

We bought two raised bed kits from Home Depot. At $29.97 each, the Greenes 4-foot-by-4-foot Dovetail Cedar Raised Garden Kit was simple to assemble, with hardware included.

Along the way, we checked to make sure it was level, but with the overall grading of the soil still tilting away from the house and toward the fence for drainage purposes.

Another little helper pitches in after his nap. :)

Originally, we configured the kits in two separate 4x4 ft. beds. That's before I had the "duh" moment that it would have been smarter to make one large rectangle (4x12 ft), essentially adding 33% more planting space.

The next day, I got out there with the drill to reconfigure the beds.

Ah, progress.

Now, on to the soil. I used 4 bags of Miracle-Gro Expand 'n Gro on the bottom, followed by 3 bags of Miracle-Gro 2 cu. ft. Garden Soil for Flowers and Vegetables and 4 bags of .75 cu. ft. generic top soil.

The Expand 'n Grow soil is condensed and dehydrated, so you add water after pouring it.

It's supposed to increase in density up to 3 times out of the bag. For me, it doubled in size after I added water.

Here's the finished result after I got all three soil varieties mixed in, six inches deep. Stay tuned for planting day details! :)

Total project time from start to finish: 6 hours. 

See also:
Part 2
Part 3