July Garden Recap 2013

A bit early, it isn't quite the end of July, but I have some time to kill today while I wait for a load of laundry to finish drying and that is a rare, rare thing so I'm taking advantage!

The Garden! Ahh, the garden. First time here to (more or less) plant the whole thing.
Things we've learned so far:

• We planted too light. 
• Reseeding stuff that doesn't come in is necessary if you want a pretty, consistent garden look.
• Straw does indeed contain weed seeds, however they are less horrible than the weeds we already had, so it has been totally worth it anyway.
• Wet cedar fence board walkways are VERY slippery.
• Shredded bark mulch hides grubs very well, but when you find them, the chickens love to munch them down.
• A really good base tan from working outside doesn't mean you can't still get burned like a toasty little marshmallow the morning you decide not to bother with sunscreen.
• Getting a yellow jacket stuck between your foot and the top of the too-big garden slogs you are wearing results in multiple little stings before you can think to yank off the shoe and throw it.
• Ice on those little stings is a miracle worker!

Aeriel view of the garden - Sara was kind enough to climb on the chicken coop to snag these for me!

Aerial of herb garden and our old cinder block shelves that have made two moves and been around for 15 years now!

 

 My grandfather's hand me down garden bench and the compost piles (in desperate need of a turning, watering and covering on two of them)

My ham-n-cheese balls posing for a picture in the herb garden.

So far the harvest is...underwhelming...for the amount of work the kids and I have put in. A whole lot of the early summer was spent doing a lot of permanent work that took time, but doesn't result in harvest. The walkways. Fencing between the herb garden and veggie garden so we can do chicken rotation this fall/winter. Putting up the cinder block shelves and Sara's garden tire. Drip systems and other irrigation. All fabulous things that will mean much less work and an earlier start on planting next year (yay!) but set us back for getting stuff in this year (boo!).

So what have we gotten so far? Lots of lettuces of all sorts of varieties. A few tiny tomatoes. Even fewer tiny (but oh, so heavenly) strawberries. Even fewer cucumbers, but more are coming. Tonight - green and yellow beans!  Herbs of several sorts - nearly all of my perennials made it back - our lovage is not happy, but it is there. We lost the sachet lavender (not a huge surprise, it is very borderline for our zone 4/5). I put in many new plants this spring, but that will be another post for another time because I would have to check the garden book to remember them all - we have 35+ varieties of herbs out there.

All in all - not a bad first year on here - particularly considering this has been nearly all the kids and me - David has been working 70+ hours a week for nearly three months now. We are lucky to see him at all some days! Again, a post for another time, but it has been a pretty stressful summer in that respect!

How does your garden grow? :-)