Posted on by Garry

The Garden

I put a little more planning and a bit more money into my garden this year. I’ll be 68 this year and the prospect of pulling massive amounts weeds for the balance of my years pushed me to invest in some labor saving initiatives.

The ‘West-Side’ planting zone. Lettuce harvesting has already started (thus the blank spots on the left most row. From the left: lettuce and cabbage in the first two rows, third row back is broccoli, near side is Napa (Asian) cabbage, forth row back is a different variety of Napa (far) and watermelon (near), Then three rows of 6 types of tomatoes (with parsley interspersed) , another row of watermelon, a full row of okra, and finally a half row of artichoke.

The most significant changes that I made this year are: the use a professional grade woven plastic ground cover in my large planting areas, the use of drip tape, and the use of professional grade netting. I still have weeds to pull around the edges, but for they are so few it is almost enjoyable.

Prize Head lettuce after harvesting between heads.

The only thing that has yet to mature in the garden (except herbs) is the lettuce. We pulled some for the kids and us last week and then 10 more head yesterday for friends.

The South Side planting area has 8 variety of peppers, a row of tomatoes, two types of pickling cucumbers, slicing cucumbers, three types of melons, two varieties of pole beans, and two types of squash.

I’m growing my cantaloupe on trellis this year and for the first time am growing my cucumbers pruned to a single runner.

Boston Pickling cucumber in the foreground, rows of peppers in the rear

The ‘anchor’ vegetable (fruit actually) of the garden is Roma tomatoes. They are staked differently (Florida weave) than the indeterminate varieties (clipped to trellis’)

Roma tomatoes in the 10 southern most raised beds. Watering in these beds is via PVC with tiny holes drilled in them.

The growing season is just getting kicked off and I suppose things could go south on me, but right now it looks like I’ve saved myself a butt-load of work downstream by stepping up my game.

A box of herbs: sage, oregano, rosemary, chives, Asian chives, parsley (a ‘volunteer’) and thyme

I had a single parsley plant materialize in one of the planting beds (the plant with the white flowers above) and I let it grow out to seed. I guess in a week or two I’ll be able to harvest those for next years planting. The photo below is a closer view of the parsley flowers

So goes the garden!

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