Before and Now

I know it's been a few months since I've posted as I've been spending most of my free time either gardening, golfing or playing with the grandkids. So, I will try and update quickly:

In May we decided to turn some of our "natural landscape" in the backyard into a vegetable garden.  Here is a photo after we have prepared the soil (not very well as it turns out), leveled the ground (mostly), built a retaining wall and added the fence (to protect the precious plants from all the wildlife!):

 

 

 

On June 1st we "sowed" the marjority of our plants; about 1/2 were transplants from Lowes or Costco and the other 1/2 were seed, but 3 of the plants (the PUMPKINS) were started by our neighboor from seed and cared for in his greenhouse .  We transplanted the following: 3 pumpkins, 7 cucumbers, 5 tomatoes, 4 peppers (one died), 3 asparagus,1 canteloupe, 3 types of squash, mutiple potatos, 8 strawberries and 2 dills, 4 basils, multiple marigolds to help with bugs.  We used seed for: lettuce, brocolli, onions, radishes, carrots, peas, green beans and corn.

 

The photos below were taken on July 4th - less than 5 weeks from when we planted!

What we've learned so far:

* Our back "yard" is CLAY and we should have used much better soil when we started as now we keep having to ammend by topping the soil with various and recommended ammendments (such as cotton burr compost)

* We have LOTS of ants...I've been trying to rid them with food grade diatomaceous earth.  It seems to help although hoping they'd ALL be gone might be "wishful thinking".

* Broccoli and lettuce are "cold weather" plants and are not liking our 90 degree heat.  Probably should have planted them earlier.

* Pumpkin, cucumber and squash have male and female flowers.  The females are what turn into the fruit - after being pollinated by the males.  Apparently, the male flowers bloom first and then a week or so later the females bloom but only for ONE day.  If they don't get "lucky" in that ONE day - the flower shrivels and dies...either way all the males will end up shriveled (for some reason this makes me smile).

* So far only the dill, basil and tomatoes are able to be harvested - but they are not going to waste...my husband eats the tomatoes almost every day and we add them to whatever we are cooking for dinner.

* I really need to thin some of the veggies but am afraid as they all look green and healthy right now.  Guess I really have no choice if I want them to continue growing!

Okay, so that's the "quicky and dirty" update.  I'll have more soon.  Thanks for reading!