Garden

Gardening in the Pacific Northwest is always an adventure!  This is actually an early year for planting, and we weren't even creating the first rows until May 14th!  That is so much later than my Southern Oregon roots are used to!

 This is what the garden looked like after Charles did a ton of tilling in the main in-ground garden area.

 We started with the beans on the north end of the garden - the soil is dryer there and they will get tall, so they like that north end.

 Yes, we do raised rows with these benefits:

     good drainage

     elevated soil temperatures

     easy weed control

     not as far down to the produce and weeds!

The raised beds have many of the same benefits as raised rows, but they are much harder to work or till up each spring.  We, thankfully, have this little OLD front-tine tiller which Charles fixed this spring and that helps a bunch.

And now... the peas are just beginning to flower, the cabbage is starting to look like cabbage (not just weeds), we've harvested two crops of radishes, on crop of spinach, and are continuing to harvest lettuce.  The second crop of lettuce is about to go in and the beets are growing well this year.  Now that the carrots are thinned, they're really putting on some size.

The dill will probably need thinned again, it's over shadowing the walla walla onions too much, and the peppers are producing beautiful green fruit.  The strawberries have produced approximately 5 pints or more of yummy berries already.  The summer squash is just beginning to take off and grow and look like it will take over the garden like is always does!  The cucumbers are just beginning to climb their fences (it will make picking easier and they will get better sun and air circulation making them happier and healthier).

 And the beans are growing so fast that I can't keep up with weaving them into their proper places on their climbing fences.  These and the cucumbers are my most cherished garden plant - we eat tons (almost literally) of their produce each year.  They are the bulk of all my canning, so these babies get the most care and concern.

 The tomatoes seem to be thriving in their raised planter near the garage (which reflects the heat throughout the day - hoping to get enough TU's (temperature units) to these guys to get ripe tomatoes this year.  I never knew one could struggle so much just to get ripe tomatoes!

This is the newest addition to our gardening this year - a separate corn patch.  We got permission to use part of the area across the road from our house (which used to be gardened about 25 years ago).  It took a TON of work - Charles and Nathanael did all the tilling and raking and removal of the tough sod layer.  And if you'll notice the nice freshly weeded rows on this side - the guys did that yesterday afternoon.  We have planted short day (early, sweet, fresh eating) corn in the south half of each row.  We planted long day (hope-it-matures-in-time, heavier yields, versatile fruits) corn in the north half of each row.  There is one volunteer squash plant out in the middle, plus some volunteer tomatoes that won't have enough sun to produce.  We did raised rows with the corn as well.

And that's part of what we've been doing this spring and summer!