Rocks In My Garden: May 2009

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Last week of May

Once again the original garden, see my Sarah at the opposite corner? Squint & look very hard. See the taters? MMMMMM, we peeked, won't be long now..... I am trying to figure out what to put there when we pull them up, blue pumpkins maybe....

This is one of our expansions, our lettuce, tomatoes and peppers, see Sarah?

The expansion and original garden.... See Sarah?

Opposite corner.......Don't bother, you can't find her.

Next corner, Sarah is to the right of the pole.... This includes the melon patch we added.

Opposite corner, I promise, she is there this time she is waving.....

Melon patch...

Adding a few rows........

Soon to be chicken yard. Luke, Sarah & I cleared this this week. We moved some siding (free) we will be using for a storage building/slaughter house (yep, we love chickens & rabbits here) and cleared some vines and weeds. I found several wild roses growing along the fence line and left those, along with the wild blackberries (after we picked them clean mmmmmmm). The honeysuckle is taking over the fence, we are having to clear most of it because it is also climbing and choking our trees. I am leaving some of it so I can train it to run the fence. I am looking for a honeysuckle jelly recipe.....

Added 3 rows for corn....

Sunday, May 24, 2009

THE BIG GARDEN!!!!

This is a corner to corner view of the big garden. You can see my Romaine on the bottom left, strawberies in the center and the upright shelves are where the corner of last years garden was. Between the lettuce & strawberries are our Tomatoes.

The former corner of our garden. The metal shelves are from a job my husband did, read down a few posts. We used these last year for our cucumbers with great success. This year we are using them for cukes, spaghetti squash, and just about anything that climbs.

Opposite corner. These little green things are peas; purple hull, zipper cream, small cream and english peas.

Another corner to corner view, I could not get the opposite view of this corner, all I could see was a big orange ball in the sky. At the far right of this picture is where our sweet corn will be. I had to add 4 more rows back to this.

This is a view to the left of the previous shot. We will put our melons here.

Tomatoes & peppers, see the romaine to the top left?

What we have built of my strawberry tower. The pieces on the inside are just there to hold the dirt in case of rain. I had to get these in and was low on dirt, we have mostly clay, so it was a rush job. My granson helped me, well I planted & he dug them up. He helped me haul them in the wheel barrel, I helped me push the tiller. I may have not had to spend as much time doing this, but we made a memory, & he had fun. We are aslo passing on a very important lesson, how to live off the land & feed your family.

My husband insisted I put a picture of the beans & peas, if you look real hard you might just see a beet to the bottom left.

Hubby's pride & joy, broccoli.

Spaghetti Squash a week ago. This week,

See how the vines just climb up the shelves? We wondered what to do with those shelves when we brought them home.......

To salt or not to salt

My mint, before slugs and salt. All that rain we had here in NE Texas brought out the slugs. I had heard that salt would help so I got out the salt and salted around the plants. But then, (yep one of my briliant ideas) I thought what good does it do to salt around the plant if the slugs are already on the plant. So I just sprinkled some in the areas affected. BIG MISTAKE.

My Spearming, Choclate Mint & Pineapple Sage... AAAKKKK.

No fear, it is coming back WHEW!!!

What did I do to get rid of those slugs, I had to do something right away, I mean they were eating my garlic too. I put 2 tuna cans & 1 small margerine tub in the ground, poured some beer in, and those little buggers ran to it. They like the yeast apparently, they drink it, fall in and cannot get out. I did have to re-plant my Petunias, and lost some Merrigolds, but at least my herbs were salvaged.

Cherry Tomatoes & Gourds

A few Gourds for planting and some peppers that needed to be re-seeded due to to much water. We saved the plastic containers from a few plants we bought, and then had someone give us some. The shelves are from a remodel job my husband did. He painted a store room for a doller store and they were getting rid of several different kinds of shelving. This is just one unit.

Cherry Tomatoes for kiddos & grandson. I just bought some small pots and am going to leave these right on the porch for them to snack on.

Ladybugs & Container Gardening.....

This was my small container garden a week ago. The one in the orange toy tool bench thingy is a petunia I have since moved to a hanging pot with a few other petunias.

This is the same Cilantro & Parsley with some Rosemary, Basil and a potted Tobasco plant. I wanted some Cilantro in a pot I could carry in the house in the winter so I always have fresh. I am thinking I need to get a bigger pot.