It's finally that time of year again and I couldn't be happier! It's officially garden season! This year, I've moved my garden boxes from behind our house to the side of our house so they can get more sunshine. Spoiler: the plants are loving it. Here's a bit of a rundown of what I'm growing this year:
In this first box, I'm growing 4 different types of tomatoes (5 plants total) and lots of types of peppers! Johnny and I eat a lot of peppers in general between the two of us, so I decided to just really go for it this year. I have different varieties of bell, banana, serrano, poblano, jalapeño... well, you get it. It's going to be a delicious summer. A dozen pepper plants pretty much means we should be swimming in them during the peak of the season.
In addition to those plants, I also have onions, sweet potatoes, and radishes in the box. Don't ask me about the radishes quite get. I'm 100% new to growing those.
I have quite a lot happening in the second box. As you can see, I'm still going strong with my vertical gardening. The peas and beans from seeds are growing up nicely, as well as the squash and cucumbers. I came home with an accidental cantaloupe, so we'll see how that pans out, and a friend sent me some PINK pumpkin seeds. I'm extremely excited about those!
In the photo directly above, you can see that my salad greens from seed and my kale are popping up. I also have several strawberry plants that are producing like crazy so far, and some bee balm and marigolds to attract the good bugs (bees, butterflies, ladybugs) that eat and chase out the not-so great ones. I have quite a crop of marigolds blooming from seed, but I did go ahead and buy a few already-established plants from the garden store to get the party started.
Besides too little sunshine, another challenge I faced last year was lack of pollination in my squash flowers. I don't know if you remember this, but I even tried pollinating by hand! It didn't work for me, so I'm hoping a large crop of brightly colored flowers will attract all the bees this year!
So, that's where I am in my summer gardening adventures. I know, at least for me, gardening excitement pretty much comes in waves, and I feel super into it this year. I'll keep you posted on how it goes!
Absolutely beautiful. I, too, find garden season my favorite and it's always awesome too peek in on other people's accomplishments and designs. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteYes! It's one of my favorite things to bond over. :)
DeleteYour veg garden looks great! We grew radishes last year and they went really well - I'm sure you'll be fine with yours too :) Totally jealous of your sweet potatoes. I might add them to my gardening list this year too!
ReplyDeleteThe Crafty Gentleman | DIY and Crafts
https://www.thecraftygentleman.net
Awesome post.
ReplyDeleteI have a quick question about squash because I saw you said you didn't get to "pollinate" your flowers. So I have a big squash plant in my garden (my first time gardening as you can tell) and it keeps getting big beautiful flowers but they keep dying off and there are no squash behind them. Should I be doing something to the flowers to help the squash grow?
Thanks for the help!
Squash is interesting because on every vine you will get a male flower and a female flower. In order to get squash to develop from the flower, you need bees. Basically you need a friendly little worker bee to take the pollen from the male flower to the female, because the female is the one that develops the fruit. You can try doing this by hand by using a male flower and opening up a female and transferring, but I haven't had success with it so far. Plant as many flowers around your plants as you can and hope more bees come to help you in your garden!
DeleteI'm so jealous of your garden. I made a post recently about growing tomatoes and green peppers in a pot, but wow, yours has everything! :-)
ReplyDelete~Laurali Star
Thank you! I think every year I get a little more ambitious. Tomatoes and peppers are always great staples!
DeleteVery nice garden you have!
ReplyDeleteActually, I just came by to comment of your sweet post for father's day at IG.
I did not have a positive relationship with my dad while growing up and now he is out of my life for more than a decade as a dad since we are not in touch due to his abusive behavior.
And it warms my heart so much, when I see good relationships between kids and their fathers. And I also adore observing my friends and my girlfriends' male partners becoming loving, present, gentle dads with their kids. Especially when I know that they did not have good father figure or dad even being present when they were growing up themselves.
Cheers to all dads, who are present, loving, kind, gentle and good role models for future generations!
I am so there with you! Thank you for taking the time to stop by and comment. <3
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