The Garden Update

I think we're past due for a garden update so I thought I'd finally provide you with the details. We had started a whole bunch of plants by seed and they'd been in our window sills waiting for the last frost date to pass. Around here that is Memorial Day so we finally were able to get started preparing the ground outside.

Our garden site is an old circular planter in our backyard. Although the daffodils and a few other bulbs still bloomed every year, it was entirely overgrown with goldenrod for most of the year. It choked everything else out. Just terrible. So, we began cleaning out the bed.

This stuff is pretty insidious!! The underground network of roots was pretty scary. This is just a small example. The roots were spread all over sideways and it was pretty hard to get out of the ground.

We decided just to dig up the bulbs and we didn't transplant them because there were not dormant having leaves up top. These bulbs must be at least 20 years old I bet.

The finished product! By the way, this was the entirety of Dan's contribution to our gardening folly. He made it clear he'd help to prepare the space and then he would be OUT. Here I have our seedlings out and ready to be planted.

I-7 takes a shot at planting a pumpkin.

R9 helped dig a hole for a tomato plant.
J3 could not be left out. He's getting ready to plant a marigold.There you have it. In the end, we transplanted 3 tomato plants, 3 pumpkin plants, 2 sweet peas, 1 radish, 3 marigolds, 3 peppers. I left room in between for stepping stones. Cindy- I need another trip to the lake so I can really bring home those big, flat rocks!

Now that everything's been in the ground for a few weeks, we've been watering and weeding. Some of the plants look good. Others not so much. Our watermelon appears not to have made it. I would love to put more in from a nursery just to see if the sturdier plant will grow better and faster. Lots of our seedlings were too hard to get out of their tiny growing spots. Next year I won't do those tiny start up pots. The lettuce did poorly by seed but I may try again yet. I'm worried about the pumpkins. They don't seem to be doing well. Who can mess up a pumpkin? I'd like to try one out in another place with more sun, but the groundskeeper refuses to mow around a pumpkin vine. I'm telling you...when our harvest comes in and someone wants a beautiful, garden ripe tomato, I'm not sure what this Little Red Hen will have to say. Someone she knows is a garden grouch! I'm just sayin'.

We are having fun with it and we know it is a learning year. I hope we get some good results at least on one level so we have something tangible to build upon for next year. We've been taking a much needed break from our regular studies before moving on to our summer routine (hoping to blog about that soon) and we will continue our plant studies during these fleeting summer months.