Backyard Garden

The garden is doing well. We've been eating the salad greens and many of the herbs. The oregano and the sage came back from last year. The sage is just about flowering, so that's good for the bees. The Chives came back, and we finally gave them a permanent place in the herb garden. Jen's parents brought some rhubarb from their garden up in Sumner. We planted that in between the Pear and the Japanese maple. Next summer we should have our own. We have one row that we have not planted anything in yet. Likely we will use it to rotate out some greens. The rest of the garden is dotted with plants and flowers. At least it will be dotted with plants and flowers as soon as they grow. Now the battle for the garden begins. We had turned up out lawn, and this is our first year with the new garden, so the grass is coming back. It seems to like the new soil as much as we hoped our garden plants would. Along with the grass and weeds, we have a number of volunteers from where we added ...

This year our gardens are small but coming along nicely. Mulching the gardens has not only reduced weeding but has also helped keep the moisture in the beds. We tried planting just a few cukes in a large pot and letting them vine instead of spreading out, we have already had several cucumbers and they are easy to see and pick. This year we are letting the big compost pile rest (it is almost perfect soil and will be nice to add to all the gardens later this fall) and picked up a barrel composter. Since we let the old pile rest there must have been some pumpkin seeds from last Halloween that sprouted and we may get some pumpkins, if not it's squash and either way it's great! Left to right: flower bed, morning glories, mint & chives bed, tomato & herbs bed, and the new composter just under the Japanese maple. 3 beds with peppers, different types of tomatoes, basil, oregano, broccoli, marigolds, cilantro, and strawberries. First successful brocc...

We undertook the semi big task of moving compost this weekend. Over the winter we left our summer compost alone and started a winter compost near the door and porch to ensure continued and plentiful composting. Now that the weather is so nice the winter compost was ready to be moved away from the door! I started by emptying the summer one out, and here is the winter compost. easy to take apart! when it was half frozen the vegetable clippings and hay were halfway up the structure. Just since the weather has been nice it decreased significantly. Shawn is hosing down the summer compost, it needs just a little more breaking down before we can use it in the garden. we will leave it in a pile and cover it with a tarp, this way we can turn it often and speed up the last stretch of composting. So I got half of the compost moved. The whole time I am layering the compost like a lasagna, a gross lasagna mind you. we had a high concentration of vegetable clippings and needed to break them up ...

You can not have a good garden without compost. We made ours out of old pallets and it took about 10 minutes to secure 3 sides and we left the front open for turning. It cost us nothing. I suggest that anyone who can have one do so. Plus there is nothing better for your flowers and for potted plants inside! I also have a "worm bucket" as my father calls it. They are great for super rich nutrient dense soil. You can use the dirt to make "worm tea" to liquid fertilize your plants as well. The worms are now living in the compost for the summer, and I will take as many as I can inside for the winter.