Come and take a peek.

I love making new gardens. In fact I’ve made so many it’s hard to count them. I snapped some picture of the new garden this weekend and after 4 months it’s doing pretty good. Come and take a look with a garden update…

 The raised beds have performed fabulously and we have 108 square feet of growing space, in 6 beds.

This year we planted

• // Summer Squash
• // Slicing Tomatoes
• // Cucumber
• // Pole Beans
• // Cherry Tomatoes
• // and various herbs

The summer garden has replaced carrots, cilantro, onion and lettuce production. We’ll be planting a new round of cool weather crops in September.

May was one of the wettest months on record for the state of Texas and my garden received a lot of rain.

I noticed that during the big rains, the plants get really dirty. I know, it’s a garden and it’s planted in dirt, but the leaves can remain clean(ish) by spreading mulch.

So one thing I would like to do is add mulch to the rest of the beds. This will retain moisture for the hot summer days that are fast approaching, and keep the plants from being pounded by rain.

We set up the bean poles a little late and the rain caused some yellowing of the leaves. An application of natural fertilizer has cleared that up and we are getting beans every day now.

   

The straw bale that I conditioned and planted in February is really the best part of the garden. You can see it in the bottom left of this picture. It has a bumper crop of basil that I  have been preserving on a regular basis and a cherry tomato plant that we are using for salads every night. I hope to do more straw bale gardening in the fall.

And as a reminder – I created this garden from scratch by claiming an area 50 feet long by 8 feet wide. It has several elements that I am still developing.

• // Raised beds
• // Straw bale garden
• // Gutter garden
• // Pallet planters

If you want to start a garden yourself, read my post – Starting a Garden From Scratch – to see how it was created.  I’m calling this garden a success. We are eating tomatoes, basil and summer squash daily. The cucumbers should be coming on a few weeks and the herbs are ready for a continual harvest. Not bad in so small a space!