Summer Veggies (Project 358: Days 112 and 113)

We planted our Spring/Summer veggie garden a few weeks ago, and I am just now getting around to blogging about it. It's late, I'm hungry, I should go to bed, but I want to get this damn post out of the way so I can stop thinking about it. Oh, and for those of you who read this post and were expecting Days 112 and 113 to be all exciting and shit, umm...yeah. Sorry.

Anywho, this is what our garden looked like prior to planting:

Day 112: Before

And this is what it looked like immediately after:

Day 113: After!

Okay, I admit, the plants are so small in the "after" pic, it doesn't really look that different than the "before." Here's a breakdown of what we're growing this year (items marked with an asterisk are plants that we grew last year; the rest are new to us):

Our Tomatoes (L to R): Goliath, Sun Gold, Red Grape Heirloom*, Heirloom Goldie

I really wanted to practice crop rotation to ensure that our soil doesn't get too depleted, but in such a small garden space, I found it to be a challenge. On Dictionary.com, 'crop rotation' is defined as, "the system of varying successive crops in a definite order on the same ground, especially to avoid depleting the soil and to control weeds, diseases, and pests." For example, tomatoes eat up loads of nitrogen and, over the course of a season, will deplete the soil of it. Therefore, it is best not to plant them in the same spot year after year, but rather rotate their location, preferably to a spot previously inhabited by a nitrogen fixing plant, such as legumes. This can also help to control pests that over-winter in the soil. Unfortunately, our garden is almost entirely made up of tomatoes and peppers, both of which are from the nitrogen-sapping "nightshade" family. So, we moved things around as much as we could (which wasn't much), worked some nutrient-rich compost into the soil and hoped for the best. I have to admit, though, I'm ever so slightly worried that our garden will fail this year because I failed to rotate the crops properly. Stephen says I read too much, but I once read somewhere that it's impossible to read too much. So there.

Our Strawberries

These strawberries are transplants from my parents' garden. I was a little worried that transplanting them while they were bearing fruit would be too much stress for the little guys, but they seem to be doing pretty well so far. We'd like to buy another one of these redwood barrels and fill it with another batch of strawberry plants. That way, maybe Stephen and I will actually be able to eat a few! So far, the shorties in the house seem to be reaping all the rewards.

Soon To Be A Strawberry!

Our Peppers (L to R): Red Beauty*, Canary Yellow*, Blue Jay*, Anaheim Chili, Jalapeno*

On the left, Zucchini Squash*. On the right, 'Burpless' Cucumber*

One thing we learned from our garden last year is that zucchini and cucumber plants will take over the whole damn joint. We gave 'em a little more room to breathe this year.

Our Herbs

This sweet herb table that my husband built is a new addition to our garden this year. Can't beat cooking with herbs fresh from the garden!

We also have a small raised bed kit that we'll be putting together soon. That will be the kids' garden bed, allowing them to get in on the green thumb action without making my OCD go into overdrive. They've decided that they'd like to try growing pumpkins, cantaloupe, and sunflowers. I'll post pics once that project is complete.

That's all for tonight, folks! How have your gardens been growing?