June 2015 Garden Tour

This is the time where I compare the garden this year to the garden last year and two years ago

April - At the top we have pole beans & bush beans planted, as well as a random row of carrots. Directly under that are more pole beans, lettuce from last year that randomly started sprouting, and basil. Then under that is the bed of strawberries, and under that we have peas, eggplant, and carrots.

End of May - the beans aren't doing great, since the neighbors' trees ended up growing a lot over the past couple of years and cut off a lot of sunlight from the top two beds. But the peas are doing awesome, and we ended up getting a TON of volunteer tomato plants from when we spread our compost in the spring, so I thinned them out and let some of them do their thing.

We've been snacking on sugar snap peas, which is fun considering last year we only got a few off of our plants!

On a whim, I got some Ichiban eggplant seedlings from the nursery - then I left them outside to figure out where to plant them and the twins ripped them out of the pot and danced around the yard with them. I crossed my fingers and planted them and they ended up fine! We even have our first bud!

The strawberries are FINALLY proving their worth! We planted them a couple of years ago but haven't really gotten enough to justify the space they're taking up. Well FINALLY this year they're producing decently, despite ants, squirrels, and toddlers eating what they please.

The basil is sprouting, and I'm looking forward to a whole lot of pesto from what should be a good crop of lemon basil (it's the BEST - you MUST plant some!).

Before we had a chance to til this bed, some lettuce seedlings started coming up from what was a disappointing planting last year, so I let them do their thing and Mary Claire has been feasting on the leaves pretending to be a bunny. Whatever.

Then in this bed (shown in April) we planted a bunch of garlic in the fall (well okay, in December... but the ground doesn't really freeze here so we figured it'd be okay!), and almost none of it came up :( So I direct sowed some squash, zucchini, and cucumbers, and transplanted a volunteer squash seedling from the same bed as the volunteer tomatoes. We also planted a bunch of flower seeds that have started coming up.

Mary Claire yanked up one of the cucumber seedlings so we'll see if it makes it... And I found another random squash or pumpkin seedling by the compost pile, so I transplanted that one too. We'll see what shows up!

There are also a ton of carrots interspersed in this bed - the kids ADORE the purple carrots we planted the last two years, so I planted as many as possible because they never last us long!

And the squash plants have started forming buds!

In February I thought, "Hey, I should start some seeds!" and then I didn't because I didn't know where I could put them that would keep them away from the twins. Then in March I thought, "Hey, I should really figure out where I can start these seeds!" And Mary Claire proved that she still eats dirt and sand whenever possible, so I didn't. Then in April I thought, "Screw it, I'm just buying seedlings this year."

  

And I'm really glad I did!!! They started flowering in April, formed their first green tomatoes at the end of the month, and now there are literally HUNDREDS of cherry tomatoes ripening on the vines!

This was yesterday - some of the plants are taller than me at this point!

I've already harvested and dried the oregano once this season, but it's due again. I added some thyme in the back corner, and lavender and rosemary that have quickly been dwarfed by the monster oregano plant. There's a basil plant on the bottom left and I cut down most of the sage and dried it yesterday (on the right)

We'll see if I decide to net the tomatoes this year - the squirrels mostly stayed away from them a couple years ago when we had them close to the house, and it's mostly the twins I need to worry about these days...

But hopefully we'll have so many tomatoes that there are plenty for them to snack on!

The Mary garden had some glorious tulips that have since died...

And now we've got random wildflowers coming up, as well as morning glory, violets, and some mint that I couldn't fit in the herb garden area... Also lots of weeds. Hopefully in a month or two it'll be more colorful!

So there you have it! Our June garden - linking up with Cari for her Garden Tour Link-Up because even though most of YOU find these posts incredibly boring, I love being able to look back at them!