Garden of plenty
Spinach and beets were the first seeds planted (May 3), followed by carrots and radishes the next day. A few weeks later (May 23) we put in tomato plants and sowed corn and cucumber seeds. Most recently, Thomas helped me plant beans on June 6; they sprouted in 4 days!
As far as harvesting goes, we have eaten or given away loads of radishes, and we’re going to have some spinach with supper tonight. I included some photos below for all you veggie voyeurs out there. If you need to satisfy your craving for higher resolution vegetables, head over to the gardening section of the gallery for full-size images.
Spinach (right) and beets (left) with tent structure for pole beans, followed by the aforementioned pole beans. The idea is that the beans will grow up the poles and provide shade to the spinach and beets since they don’t like full summer sun.
Tomatoes and cucumbers. The cukes - planted in the cross pattern - should fill in around the tomatoes and help trap moisture as the weather gets warmer.
Radishes (top) and carrots (bottom). I can’t believe how fast the radishes grow. Lesson for the future - don’t plant all your radish seeds at once. And, yeah, I know that the carrots don’t like the rocks. We’ll just have to see how that works out.
Corn. By far the one I’m most excited about. I have three rows like this one next to each other. I plan to plant some squash between the rows and see how that works out.
One other thing I’ve learned already - the garden is too small. I have a feeling that this is what happens to every gardener. Still, we’ll get some nice benefit from even this modestly-sized plot. And there’s always next year.
June 15th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
[I just backread all of the entries since my last visit in ~December. I decided against commenting on such old posts.]
Your corn looks to be too close together. Before they get to be six feet tall, they’ll need more root space. I would try to separate the seedlings a bit while they are small.
Also, radishes make lots of seeds. If you let a couple go, you’ll have more than you know what to do with. When my seed turned over, however, future generations weren’t as good at development nor did they taste quite as good as the first generation. When I had a balcony garden in Seattle, I was able to get three crops a summer out of radishes. So plant again now! The midsummer crop (#2) was the weakest, probably because of the heat.
Thanks for teaching me about the carrots hating stones and spinach hating the summer sun.