We just wanted to drop in with a quick Saturday update on our vegetable garden progress. Our last garden post covered the soil prep and vegetable planting. The veggies have been in the ground for about two weeks now, and they're really doing well. Here's a side-by-side view of the garden on May 22, the day we planted, and how it looks today.
As you can see from the photos, everything has been growing nicely. The beds get solid sunlight from about 12:00 pm to 8:00 pm, with just a little bit of shade from our house. It's also been extremely hot lately, so we've had to keep up with daily watering, but the square foot gardening approach makes it relatively easy. We water one to two cups around the base of each plant each day. We recently noticed an insect issue effecting a couple of the plants, so we'll need to figure out how to keep them away before it grows to be a big issue.
Here are a few more shots of our veggies, herbs, and the other new addition in the garden.
Overall the broccoli is doing great, but one of the broccoli plants has small holes in the leaves, likely from bugs. Unfortunately, the eggplant also has a few of the holes chewed in its leaves
The chives, lavender, and eggplant are also doing well. Wendy has already snipped some chives for a yummy tomato, chive and quinoa salad as well as a potato and asparagus fritatta.
The peas are doing pretty well, but it looks like one is having a bit of an issue. The onions, kale, and lettuce are going gangbusters (even though we didn't have much hope for the lettuce due to the recent heat), the beets are hit or miss, and the spinach (sniffle) appears to be in a death spiral. It's strange that the spinach is struggling because it was doing really well at first. We attribute that to the heat as well.
Our herb pots are doing really well. Here is one of three. That plant you see on the right in the pot, the huge one, that's our basil. It grows so well we need to be sure to keep using it or it will start to flower. It's crazy big, and it makes our back yard smell so good.
The photo above is the newest addition to our yard, a large pink hydrangea. We picked up the large ceramic pot from our local Ross Dress for Less store for $27!!! It is solid, real ceramic (not plastic) and weighs about 40 lbs without the dirt or plant. We finally planted the hydrangea last weekend and it started to bloom right away. Wendy has already fulfilled her hydrangea dream of having cut flowers in the house. Here's a shot of the first indoor bloom on her nightstand.
And finally, this is Lem. He's been our garden pond spitting frog for a couple of years now and provides a nice trickling water sound.
Our backyard may be in the middle of a busy city, but with all of the trees, the garden wall, and small pond, it is really a quiet, private, relaxing space.
How's your backyard space looking this year? Lush and green, or brown and abandoned?
