tour of my garden: first of june

I thought a nice way to start this month would be to give a tour of my garden. I've put in about five hours in the past two days working on it, and plan to do more all week. This is my garden after that hard work. I'll go around and point out the things that are new. (as in, that watering can. Yay! I've always wanted a watering can!)

First off, there's my square box. I started this garden using the Square Foot Garden method, and even though not all of my containers are technical SFGs, I use the soil mixture in all of them, and have had great results. This garden used to get more sun, but as the apple tree to the east grows, it gets more and more shade in the morning. So at the end of the year when my garden is empty, I'll be moving this box further out into the yard to take advantage of the sun. And then I'll make a brick patio in the spot where this garden is, so I'll have a nice shady place to sit outside and write/paint during the summer.

I took the above pic while the strawberry pot was still sitting up in there (so it was easier to cover all my plants at night, since it's been incredibly cold all spring.) The rest of my plants, clockwise from the far left with the strawberry pot, are basically:

broccoli

carrot sprouts

lettuce

            broccoli

more broccoli   

more lettuce

more broccoli

asparagus

       more asparagus

and some more broccoli. I like broccoli.

Next up is my circular garden, which as I bought as a kit. It was on sale. This was big part of my work today: it had become so infested with weeds over the early spring (darn bindweed!) that I shoveled out all the good soil, picked out all the weeds and roots and things, put down permanent weed fabric, then shoveled it all back in. I also dug out all the weeds from around it, which had been a haven for the bugs that like to eat my plants. I'll put down paths around it sometime soon, once I buy more mulch. So this is the main reason why my back hurts today.

I bought a tomato plant and planted it in there once I was done. I never did get seeds started indoors this year, so all the squash and tomatoes this year will probably have to be bought transplants. Oh well; they did me well last year--I got some very yummy cherry tomatoes and pattypan squash out of them. And that gnome is named Rupert. He is my very favourite gnome. He's riding a snail. (yes, I'm one of those people. and proud of it!)

This is a boring picture. Hopefully it will be more exciting next week. I accidentally spilled some of my baby carrot seeds, so they got planted in here so they wouldn't be wasted. More carrots are always a good thing! (for me and my cat--I've found out Lynx likes carrots more than tuna. Crazy beast.)

Here's my strawberry plant in its new location, by my little mini compost can. I bought this one too, since I've never had any luck getting the roots to sprout (which is what my huge asparagus also came from--strawberries just hate me). But I've had it for a few months now, and it's doing very nicely! Has yet to give me any berries, but I'll give it some time. (cue toetapping--why is an impatient person like me a gardener?) :)

And this is a new addition that I particularly like--behind my awesome turtle-dancing gnome (who is named Hubert. The turtle is Charles). I had a few old tires lying around, because last time we got a dumpster for yard cleanup some random person decided leaning against the dumpster was close enough to being in it, so when they took the dumpster away we got left with them. Making the best of a bad situation, I'm making them into planters. I have one more, which I'll put a cherry tomato in at some point. In this one is a bush tomato of some sort in it, which I also bought. I love tomatoes.

Hmm. That was more boring than I'd anticipated it to be. I hope a garden tour will be more exciting later in the month, when those seeds sprout! Oh, and yes, I meant to mention that--two days ago, when I started all this work, I also planted a bunch of seeds: baby carrots and 4 varieties of different coloured carrots, and swiss chard, and asian radishes, and beets, and kohlrabi, and spinach, and mixed greens. Yep. I'm excited! I hope most/all of them work out, since I'm trying all but the mixed greens for the first time this year. I've only had this garden for one year now, so this is all still new to me. But that's part of what makes it so exciting!

And here's a brag: my shoulder didn't even threaten redislocation through all of this! It's been two weeks now since I redislocated it the first time, and it's almost back to what it was before then. I'm still being careful with it, but it did me well through all the digging and other work.

It is that time of year--Do you have a garden you want to brag about? Or even just dreams/plans for a garden? Comment box is below. :)

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Listening to: The Tower by Vienna Teng. I really do love this song. Vienna Teng is one of my favourite singers/songwriters. She's amazing.