But before I got the post done, my intended planting dates were passing, and the weeds were growing, and I was needing to reconcile with the garden all over again. Gardening has been a struggle this year, but in the last week or so, with some help from the kids, it is starting to feel okay.
If it seems like there is an awful lot of bare soil in that picture, you're right, there is. Next year I want to try some extremely early spinach planting, and have it harvested in time to start the turnips in the same bed. Otherwise that soil is left open to parching sun and pounding rain for too long, I figure. The turnip bed runs from lower left to near centre of the photo above. Beyond it to the left is more bare soil, where I planned to put beans, but I still haven't got my later bean plantings in yet.
This corner seems happy, although the onions in the foreground are a bit sparse (and weedy) so far. Those I grew as transplants and set out much earlier than other years, so they are doing much better than any onions I ever grew from seed before EXCEPT . . . see that tall thick green patch in the background, with the handle of the hated lawnmower sticking up behind it? That's my crop of onions from the sets I grew last year. Yippee! This year I am growing more sets, and next year I don't think I'll bother with the transplants.And here's my favourite part of this year's garden.
I wanted to reduce the bare ground around my tomatoes and peppers, so I surrounded them with carrots. I didn't realize how pretty those double rows of carrot leaves would be, bordering the taller tomatoes. And like last year, James has been praising my "formal" garden, saying it is so much nicer to look at than all the gardens he has seen with straight rows. Thanks, James. Praise from my kids feels wonderful.
