Garden Update

I’ve had mixed results from the old raised bed in our little strip of side yard between us and the neighbors. Of the nine sweet peppers that were started from seeds indoors, five seem okay but four are borderline at best. Looks like I might have to replace some of them. But the beets, pumpkin, and beans that were direct-sown are going gangbusters. Only the direct-sown carrots were a complete dud; none of them germinated.

The bush beans were planted primarily to fix nitrogen to the soil and only secondarily as a source of food. And they’re planted in the center area of the raised bed. I’ve found that it’s hard to reach in to that part of the bed to tend to plants by the time that they’ve grown larger later in the season. Beans can pretty much fend for themselves. The area in the lower right hand corner of the bed is where the carrots failed to germinate. I’m replanting there with four starter peppers of a variety I’ve never tried, candy cane red:

Also in that little strip of land, the red potatoes I planted in containers are coming along just fine. They get plenty of sun but they’re under the eave of the roof and if rain comes straight down, they miss out so I have to monitor their water needs. I’ve become a big fan of container-planting for potatoes versus planting them in the ground, it’s so much easier at harvest time:

The back yard raised beds (mostly my wife’s domain) are doing well. I really can’t keep track of all the different things she’s planted there:

We’ve got two Honeycrisp apple trees in the backyard. One of them has never been much of a producer, but the other one has a zillion little apples starting to form. Last year they added up to so much weight that the spindly branches strained to support them. In the background, some of our raspberries:

And on the back porch, tomatoes and strawberries growing in containers, along with a bunch of different herbs:

Gardening has a learning curve so your first few years might not yield much compared to the effort you put into it, but with each season your knowledge grows along with your harvest. It’s rewarding on many levels.

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