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Thursday, June 1, 2017

Garden Tour - May 23, 2017

 With the intention of getting the garden in on Memorial Day, we began to harden off our seedlings we've been raising in our garage.    I learned a few things from that.

We've raised seeds for the last 4 years, and I'm continually learning more.  This year I realized that I don't need a 6 inch pot for tomato plants, a 4 inch would be sufficient, and actually, I believe it would've been preferred.  Even a large plastic cup would've been about right.  Here's what our seedlings looked like at the end of April.
 And here's what they looked like around mid-April:


They grew to these beauties by the end of May.


Now, let's get on with the tour.  Our batchelor buttons are thriving along the edge of our path.  We don't water those and that's just how they like it.
 Our colombine came back and didn't look very healthy, but it's trying to live.  The succulents behind it are thriving.
Our pretty desert Rose is blooming.
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The Norland Apple tree... Oh man!  What an unpleasant surprise it was too find out that we got sprinklers all set up for that tree and there is no valve to be found. So, we have to hand water that until they figure it out and fix it. The weeds are coming up anywhere they can get past the landscaping barrier, which you can see behind the Apple tree, and Steve just recently used "killzall" on it and it seems to be working now. 
After all the weeding we did this spring, we laid down 6ml black plastic in our Curbit bed so we won't ever have to deal with that again. There are 8 mounds and we have cut a little hole in the plastic at the tops of the hills for our plants to grow. We planted blue Jarradelle winter squash, yellow zebra tiger squash, zucchini, big moon pumpkin, cantaloupe and watermelon.
This next bed has lovely walking onions, chard, garlic, and chives that came back from last year! We laid down some cardboard to keep the weeds down next to that bed. I'm thinking of putting rocks or mulch in that path, but leaning toward rocks to avoid pests. 
The chard is nice and tall and is going to seed! I'm excited to see what that ends up looking like. 
We love our chives and chive flowers. I really should use it more in cooking, but honestly, my cooking lately has been really sporadic with how busy the yard, garden, homeschool, and relief society responsibilities have kept me. We've eaten out way more than we should. 

We covered our cabbages with netting to prevent the moths from destroying our crop. We'll see how well it works.


In another cabbage bed, we covered it with a shade fabric to help protect it from bugs and keep the ground cooler, hoping to harvest in the summer and not just the fall after it cools down.
In addition to cabbage, our come crops include aspabroc, Minuteman cauliflower, flat Dutch cabbage (these get huge!), and golden acre cabbage.
My neighbor friend, Jax, helped me plant the popcorn. He loves helping garden and he's really good at it!
Our lilac isn't prolific, but it did bloom a bit. And the bloom is beautiful. 
We had parsnips come up in the spring and they're going to seed. I've never seen that for myself before. 

Nutrimulch was added to all the beds we planted in. Hopefully that gives them a great start. 

Our strawberries are beautiful on the side yard. 
The girls use gardening as hands on science. Without them, this garden wouldn't likely exist in the marvelous way it does.