A Partial Victory Garden...

I've always had a garden, even when we lived in an apartment. About 3 years ago, we removed a huge hedge to clear a spot for a garden. I love having my own produce growing in my back yard. I'm not the most dedicated vegetable gardener; however, and sometimes I forget to take a look back there for a week or so. I could probably increase my yield by just visiting more often. So, that's why it's only a partial victory. It's in and we get some food from it.

Well, this year's frost season was freakishly late. We had some frosty mornings all the way through April. I'm impatient. I put everything in while it was still frosty. I'm a firm believer in Darwinism's theory of "survival of the fittest." All my vegetables are raised with tough love!

Good intentions to re-build the raised beds have fallen by the wayside and I'm making due with what I have.

For two weeks, in preparation for planting, I brought in bags of compost to add to the bed, removed the huge amount of redwood roots that have sought out the easy pickings of water and nutrients in the beds and turned the soil. And finally, assembled a variety of structures to hold the future bounty. The effort felt like a sort of tinker toys for adults. Then we planted seeds & transplanted starts from a neighbor.

Here's a list of what I'm growing this year:

Howden Pumpkins
Oregon Sugar Pod Snow Peas
Little Finger Baby Carrots
Cherry Belle Radishes
Yellow Crookneck Squash
Green, Yellow and Purple string beans
Straight Eight Slicing Cucumbers
Genovese Italian Basil
Canteloupe from a neighbor
3 varieties of Tomatoes (Big Boy, and two unknowns) from a neighbor
An unknown pepper from same neighbor
Salad Bowl Mix of Leaf Lettuce
Bean plant that Megan is sure will take us to the Giant (thanks Miss Janie!)
Random Sunflower seeds

The radishes are ready to be harvested and the lettuce should be big enough in a week or so! Everything seems to have sprouted and I lost nothing to the late frosts we had!

April 21, 2009
3 weeks

May 6, 2009
5 weeks
(unsure why picture is sideways...)