Mine is growing quite nicely. Now. After rescuing it from the monster chickens that is, grr. Our raised beds have been planted for just over a week and the plants that have made it into the beds are growing and thriving. The day of the planting, we left the house for a few hours to get ice cream and when we returned, the chickens had managed to dig up most of what I had planted.
I was a bit angry.
I then found all of the scraps and pieces of various fencing I have around the yard and proceeded to build an extremely ugly barricade fence around the gardens. It’s horrible looking but it does the job and no one has been able to get in to the garden since. I have no idea what in the world they’re doing in there anyway! I left the gardens wide open last year after we built our raised beds and not one of them tried to get in to mess them up. Silly chickens!
There are a bunch of onions going to seed that were left in the garden all winter. They are really pretty which is why I haven’t pulled them up yet! I will soon to make way for other plants but for now, I’m just enjoying them! We also have quite a few carrots still in the beds from last year. I’m leaving themso I can pick one or two at a time to give our bunny Aggie a treat, she loves carrots!
Most of the pepper plants are growing well, even the broken ones. I think we planted red or green bell peppers and sweet banana peppers; four of each.
Tomatoes are my favorite veggie to grow at home. they do well with the square foot gardening method and there is absolutely nothing as delicious as biting into a sun warmed tomato that has just been plucked from the vine!
We planted 11 tomato plants this year; Golden Jubilee, Beefsteak and another variety that I cannot remember!
Radishes are always fun to plant, they come up quickly and before you know it, they’ll be ready to toss into a salad. I like to plant a few seeds each time I pick the ripe ones — a never ending supply of radishes! pay no attention to that weed on the right posing as a radish seedling!
Mmmm, beans! I like eating fresh from the garden beans almost more than I like to cook them! The crispy snap when you bite into that long pod, that’s when beans taste almost juicy! We planted a mix of Kentucky pole and a bush variety along a short netting section. I can’t wait for the vines to start growing and for the bean blossoms to show up, they are beautiful!
We threw a handful of snap peas in the garden this year as well. Not enough to do anything with but we always end up just grabbing a handful to munch while we walk around the yard anyway! A few snap peas are also so good tossed into a fresh salad or stir-fry!
We also planted one lone pot of cucumbers. There were 2 or 3 small plants in that pot though so we’re hoping to be able to pick enough to make a few jars of refrigerator pickles. I made a simple bamboo tepee for the cucumber vines to climb up.
There were two zucchini plants in the pot we picked up so I left them that way. I may regret it but it won’t hurt to try. I hope we actually get a few zucchini this year. For the past couple of years I have not had much luck with our zucchini plants! I like to slice them into discs and make fried zucchini — yum!
This one may or may not be a yellow straight-neck squash. Or, it may be some other squash? I don’t know. I had my hubby pick all of these plants up for me from my cousin-in-law so I’m not sure what this will be. We’ll find out in a few weeks!
Besides veggies, my favorite garden plants are herbs. They are beautiful plants that will have gorgeous blooms if you let them, yet they are so useful in the kitchen. I always have chives, mint, rosemary, sage, oregano, parsley, basil and lemon thyme in my garden and flower beds. Sometimes I also grow dill, curry and cilantro.
I was so happy that my rosemary plant came back this year! We had such a mild winter than even my parsley stayed green almost all winter and is thriving!
Just for fun, we have a large clump of walking onion plants in one flower bed. I don’t use them for anything and I believe this clump started from an old onion I threw out the door one day several years ago.
They are a pretty plant when they are in bloom and look like a wild clump of fairy flowers waving around. Each of the bulbs in the center cluster will eventually turn brown and if you plant them, they’ll grow new onions. They’re called walking onions because the cluster gets so heavy that the stalks fall over to the ground where the onions will then grow. They can be a nuisance if you let them go and will spread almost as fast as mint. They’re easy to pull up though.
I still have a few squares left in the raised beds to fill. Most likely I’ll plant some different lettuces so we can have fresh salad. Maybe another tomato plant or something! We’ll see! How is your garden doing? Do you have huge one or a container one? I love seeing photos of how other people garden so share your link in the comments so I can come take a peek :).
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One day I’ll have a garden. It’ll sadly probably all die though. Yours is looking great!
Hope you grow a nice garden, one small tip that helps it’s the time of the day that you decide to water your plants, usually for most of veggies the morning hours are the best, due to the fact that when the sun comes out it will evaporate the excess of water, letting the plants consumed only the water that they really needed.