Back in May, I wrote Notes From the Garden about my high hopes for our vegetable garden this year. In the three springs since we’ve moved into our house, we’ve set out with grand gardening visions each April. We’ve tilled and planted and watered … but we haven’t had much success. The first April I was seven months pregnant and vastly overestimated how much I would enjoy hovering over raised beds with a newborn in a sling. Then last spring the garden was doing great … until four ravenous chickens pecked it to shreds. So now our newborn’s grown into a toddler and we’ve built a chicken yard and I’ve charted and planned, and it just has to be our year, right?
Well, I’ve been feeling fairly optimistic about our progress. The chard didn’t do well, but we’ve been munching on peas for weeks, we just harvested garlic, the tomato plants are huge, the zucchini is threatening to take over the garden, and my husband’s hops are climbing their homemade trellises.
Then I glanced at those pictures I took in mid-May, and realized how much everything really has grown in just two months, and I couldn’t believe it. As my friend Rose said last year as she was harvesting bumper crops of peppers and tomatoes – “Gardening is thrilling!”
Of course, there is still the matter of this little problem:
How’s your garden growing?
It seems like gardeniong has a lot of ups and downs. We go from near despair one week to being amazed with our luck the next week. The two things that have helped our garden to be a marginal success is that we a) try to just get out there and grow some things without worrying about being perfect (He who watches the skies will never plant.”–Eccesiastes) and b) plant a lot in terms of quantity and variety (and inevitably get lucky with this and that). Here is an article and video about our little urban homestead:
http://www.americanpress.com/lc/blogs/wpnewssum/?p=9654
Thanks for posting the link! Very cool.
You’re welcome and thank you.
My garden is shriveling under the unrelenting sun and lack of monsoon that Tucson has been hit with. I think I’m shriveling too. This pictures make me want to move. Remind me of this in December and January when I’m laughing at you in colder and wetter climes.
Oh, I’ll remind you.
Your garden is beautiful! Mine is doing fairly well for being my first. I’ve only got a container garden on my fire escape, but there are tomatoes thriving, herbs growing nicely, beans weighing down the vines, various gourds flowering, etc. I’m pretty excited, actually!
I know, it’s so exciting when all is going well, isn’t it?
Oooh, I love the photos! Gardening is thrilling indeed. 🙂
I just got back from being away from mine for three weeks, and I swear I was suffering withdrawal. I also simply could not believe how much everything grew in just THREE WEEKS! Unreal. Here’s my update:
http://www.chickencounting.com/2010/07/home.html
Thanks for linking to your photos. Your garden looks amazing!
Like Tepary, my garden is also shriveling under the Arizona sun and the “non-soon”. I miss the soil from east of the Mississippi… After 20-years, I still haven’t got the hang of gardening in the desert, except for the night blooming cacti.
Swiss Chard loves cool weather, you might try again in the fall or wait until early spring.
I’m thinking of chickens… if only the Schnauzers will leave them alone. I’d love to have fresh eggs to gather every morning, especially with the grandkids. It would be like an Easter egg hunt for them!
Oh night blooming cacti sound lovely. Yes, my son loves gathering eggs. It never gets boring. And I think you’re right about the swiss chard. Perhaps I’ll try again when the weather cools down.
Lovely photos! It looks to me like your garden is doing quite well.
Thanks for the quote and link. I will have to get some updated photos of our garden up soon. Everything is really taking off now!
I’d love to see the photos. Do you think you’ll get a lot of apples this fall?