A tour of my gardens

I'll take you on a pictorial walk through my gardens. I want you to know that I took the window screen out of my bedroom window, just so I could get you the aerial view. I risked my life! Or at least my husband's wrath, which really, if you know my husband, is not much of a threat.... but nonetheless. (Who engineers these things so that you can only pop them back in from the outside? When you're on the second floor?). OK, back on track. Take a look at my new vegetable garden.

You see my laundry line in the front. At the far back are a tiny apple tree and a small cherry tree. The rectangular bed in the far back is surrounded with bricks and has flowers, including giant sunflowers. I do hope they will work out. 

In the front row are three square beds that I already had, but moved to this new location. The leftmost one has some orach (a kind of spinach-y thing I'm trying), onions, parsley and chards. The middle has cucumbers for now. The right one is what you see in the picture below:

It has squash, kale and mesclun lettuce.

The larger 4x10 bed in the back to the left has rhubarb, strawberries (see that green berry????) and in the middle amaranth seedlings and more  purple orach. 

I'm trying an ornamental variety of popcorn on the right half of the oval in the back, surrounded by rocks. There are also some purple pole beans sprouting there right now.

The second large bed houses tomatoes I planted after the picture was taken, Malabar (a climbing spinach type thing that I am having high hopes for), and more squash.

OK this is a small detour. I got distracted again as I walked around. See that heartshaped bright green ivy leaf? It came from my wedding cake. The cake was decorated with heart-shaped ivy vines and I planted them in my front yard. The variegated thing next to it was in the center piece at my bridal shower. Also, my mom carried lily-of-the-valley at her wedding. So there. I admitted in public that I'm a sap.

photo by Sarah Bastille

Back at the orchard: We planted 2 apple trees, a plum tree, and 2 beach plums this year, adding to the two cherry trees from last year. I'm so impressed with this new guy and his bravely making a TON of flowers. I better stake and tie that branch really well.

See the cherry?? We seem to have pollination!

Further in the back, on the side of the shed, I have a little trellis for climbing peas, and under the straw are potatoes. I love homegrown potatoes. This year we have some Yukon gold, red bliss and a cool purple one.

Around the corner is my back strawberry patch, behind the fence to the right. All those white dots are flowers. There is more rhubarb next to it. I'm trying to give it a ton of compost right now, to see if I can get it to grow BIG.

Turn around and you see this. The blueberry bushes frame the picture. Behind is a little alley formed by raspberries to the left and blackberries to the right. The raspberries are looking good this year, but the blackberries don't. Last year, one of the bushes had some disease and I had to clip it way back, this year, both bushes seem affected. Any advice is welcome. I might shop for a more resistant variety and try again. We have had years with glorious blackberry harvests, but not in the last 2 years.

At the back of the little alleyway is the 'old garden'. It's a square with zero paths, all planting space. This was a before kids idea, and doesn't work well now because the little feet don't quite know how to sneak around the plants the way mine can. There are strawberries in the middle, potatoes on the left and the front of the right.

 

On the back of the right are a bunch of pole beans, kale, chard, lettuce and a little asparagus that isn't very happy in that spot.

That leaves the small berry bushes, that are on the other side of the shed. Two currants and three gooseberries, this year should be our first modest harvest. I'm counting the days and the berries!