Saturday, May 14, 2011

Mulched

Yesterday was spent mulching between the beds. And since Ribbit asked and it has been such a long time, I had to go take photos of the garden from above.

The first photo is from my guest room. I have to climb on top of end table and open the window from the top to get this view. If I take it from the bottom of the window a third of each bed is cut off from that little roof overhang. And no I will not go and try to climb up to the attic window for a better view. I will not risk death and a broken leg trying to get a photo.

From left to right. Bed 8 has a modified three sisters planting. The pole beans will grow up the trellis and the corn and squash are in the front. The corn has started to come up already. And I've seen one bean start to push up. It won't be long before the rest of them come up. Bed 7 is my pole garden with tiny little peppers. Bed 6 is under the row cover. That is where all my brassicas and chard are planted. Today I went out and filled in the empty picked spots with some green stemmed bok choy. Other replacements are already growing, but have a couple weeks more before they get in the garden. Bed 6 has or will have my cucumbers nearest the bottom then the melons, then in the top 4'x8' section I have zucchini and more pole beans. Bed 4 The bottom has four tomatoes in the cages and in front are some eggplant.

Moving down and taking the photo from my 2nd story hall, bed 3 is lined with peas on the right side and on the left are a while bunch of other things. From bottom to top are favas, carrots, bunching onions, parsley, cumin, coriandar, leeks, and dill. Bed 2 is my poor sad spinach and radish bed under a cover. Bed 1 is my main tomato bed. It has 17 tomatoes in it plus a few flowers. Our forecast for this coming week is rain, rain, and more rain. Mixed with lots of clouds. Even the long range forecast has nothing but rain it in. So no sun for a while. I wanted my tomatoes to be protected from being wet all the time. The four tomatoes in bed 4 will just have to survive in any way they can as I haven't covered them. The last bed is the driveway herb bed. This bed is right in front of the fence by the driveway and can be hard to get to since the arbor sticks out so far. It contains a bleeding heart, nasturtium, zinnia, cosmos, achillea, chamomile, French tarragon, and anise hyssop (the last two put in today)

Next up is the foundation herb bed (bottom part of the photo). It has my climbing rose, three mint pots (potted up today, but not in the photo), borage, forget-me-nots, rosemary (also put in today), sweet alyssum, dianthus, sunflowers, and sage. Eventually it will also have some black-eyed susans, but not yet. I've been growing them from seed and they are still less than half a centimeter wide so they have a long time to grow yet.

Then my circle garden from the guest room had its photo taken. The center has herbs. To the left are lettuce and garlic. I seeded some summer lettuce yesterday (Red Sails, Deer Tongue, Jericho, Anuenue, Manoa) to fill in when they are picked. To the right of the circle are my onions. Also in this photo you can see my pallet compost bins (behind the reed fencing). I snagged another pallet for the last bin. It now has a full sized pallet in the front. I filled it to the top with leaves that I had in bags.

Yesterday the herbs from the Growers Exchange came. They looked pretty good. I put them in the ground today. Normally I'd let them get used to full sun before planting out, but since we won't have full sun for at least a week, I think they are safe.

A few of the herbs that came went into the circle garden. Now it looks much more like a kitchen herb garden. From the top going clockwise are chives, Arp rosemary, two bunches of bunching onions, sage (grown from seed), garlic chives, English thyme, French thyme, and Greek oregano. I'm not sure you can see the oregano as I grew it from seed and it is still small. But it seems to be happily getting bigger. There is also a borage plant under the sundial. I may not let it live there as I'm not sure there is space for it, but I'll leave it for now.

24 comments:

  1. Great update.

    If you leave your borage after it flowers you'll get borage seedlings all over the place for years (which might not always be welcome). It's flower is so pretty that you have to forgive it.

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  2. Love the perspective from above. I wish I could get a top view of mine, but like you, don't feel it necessary to break a leg for a different view!
    :)
    I also really like your circle garden-the herbs will look wonderful in there!

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  3. Nice view of the entire garden! WOW! You sure have a large area...must keep you plenty busy! Everything looks like it's coming along nicely!

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  4. Urban gardening on steroids! That's really impressive. Hope you do another overview this summer when the plants grow up.

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  5. Your herb garden is going to be so pretty! I love the sculpture in the center! My garden looks so messy compared to yours : (

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  6. Absolutely to die for! Now I want to buy a new house with a big garden area. And I want to climb on the roof to see how my garden looks from up there.

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  7. Daphne - OOH! beautiful views of your beds! Like Granny, wish I could move into a new house with garden space like you! P.S Granny, we love you, please don't climb on the rooftop!:)

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  8. Lovely Garden and great view. I wish I could see this in person when in full growth mode. That must be treat for the eyes with everything growing and green :)

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  9. Great overview vantage point from above! I only have a one story house so that is not possible here short of climing up on the roof and I am just not going to do that. ;) It would be fun to view the garden from that perspective though.

    We have days of rain ahead of us too. Seems to be our lot in life lately.

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  10. Mal's Allotment, I usually love when borage self seeds. That isn't the best spot for it though. I have it in other parts of the garden where I'm hoping it self seeds.

    Sue, thanks

    Holly, it is pretty big. I'll see how much it produces this year.

    gardenvariety-hoosier, I hope to take overviews every month as it grows.

    Deb Fitz, the sculpture belongs to my townhouse mate. I stole it since she put it in part of the garden where I didn't want it. I'm hoping she doesn't want it back closer to her side of the house but so far she seems fine with it.

    Granny, lol no climbing on the roof Granny. Non of us want to hear from your daughter saying how you fell off the roof. But I've seen your yard in photos. You have plenty of room if you want a bigger garden. You'd never be able to eat it all, but you could grow it. Maybe you could set up a farm stand out front.

    RandomGardener, its fun, but oh the work to get a new garden up.

    sarada, I hope so. We need to warm up a bit or the tomatoes won't be very happy this year.

    Laura, rain rain go away and come again only once every five day and rain for 3/4" lol. I think we will be wet and mildewy by the end of this week. Everytime I look the forecast just gets worse and worse.

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  11. Love it! Love it! Love the arial. I can't wait to compare!

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  12. Your garden looks fantastic. All of your hard work is paying off nicely. My radishes are nearly ready and I'm so excited.

    Also, I'm trying to find some of the mesh covering that you use over your spinach. Did you order yours online? I can't find it locally.

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  13. Greek oregano will take over the universe.

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  14. It all looks so beautiful and tended. I have been so slow to start. I am sure the work will pay off but I am with Granny. You make buying a new house and starting a garden look easy. Good thing I know better.

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  15. Beautiful gardens and so nice to see so little lawn :-D We have the same longterm forecast which is good as the soil was getting a tad parched. I haven't been able to mulch yet though after the rain I think I will to hold in the water. The old garden is beach quality sand so the soil needs the protection!

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  16. The mulch and garden looks fantastic!

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  17. Just beautiful....especially the symmetry of everything.

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  18. Wow, your garden is just gorgeous! I love what you've done!

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  19. Oh, it looks so, so beautiful! This is what my dream garden will be like! So impressed. Can't wait to see it fill up!

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  20. Your garden here at the new house is beautiful a great example of the possibilities of urban veggie gardening. You shoud be in Fine Gardening mag!

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  21. Your garden looks beautiful, Daphne! I know you've been working very hard. It must make you proud to take a moment and enjoy your progress. Now grow garden, grow! :)

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  22. Wonderful job! My garden will never look like yours - but I sure admire your talent.

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  23. Most impressive. Very well laid out and neatly designed. You've managed to squeeze a small farm into a very tiny urban space.

    http://www.media-organic.com/garden-week-in-review-6

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  24. Your garden space really looks great. Orderly and utilitarian but yet still a bit artistic with the patio area. I like it :)

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