Thursday, August 16, 2012

A Tour of the Garden

I thought I would take you on a tour of our garden this year. This year I planted three raised beds of yellow potatoes, lettuce, beets, pumpkin, asparagus, zucchini, cucumbers, watermelon, green beans, cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes, celebrity tomatoes, Big boy tomatoes, and one green bell pepper.

When you walk out of our door this is the garden you see.


I had made a flower bed here, but need to put down the mulch. This part drives Matt crazy. I put a layer of cardboard and newspaper as my weed barrier. This is called the lasagna method.


This is the first of my garden green beans and tomatoes.


The green beans didn't do so well. Too dry. You can see the small chicken wire fence around the bottom. That is to keep out the rabbits and other critters. The rabbits are abundant here and eat my garden.

You can see the tall tomato plants next. The tomatoes have done wonderful! I planted 16 tomato plants and the cherry tomatoes just popped up on their own.

Here is my harvest for today. I have probably gotten four or five loads like this so far and will get two more.

Here is the pumpkin vine. I see three small pumpkins growing so far. My pumpkins have typically not done very well so far. I need to do some reading to see what I can do to get bigger pumpkins.


Then to the left of the pumpkins are my watermelon. Last year I planted about sixteen seeds and got 12 watermelon. This year I only planted six seeds. I see 3 growing.

This is the back of my tomato bed. The smaller roma tomatoes.


Watermelons again, can you see the little green striped watermelon?


The raised beds are at the back of the garden near the tree line, so I plant colder weather crops there. The tall feathery plant is the asparagus.


Here is the cucumber. They will grow up the trellis. My viney plants in this area are getting eaten by bugs. Only two cucumbers harvested this year so far.


These are hard to tell what they are because it just looks like a sea of green. I know, I know I need to weed my garden. The left are the zucchini and right are the cherry tomatoes. I planted them last year and they just came up on their own this year. I didn't know tomato plants did that.


The raised beds are suppose to be easier to weed and manage, but honestly I can get into the regular garden easier and can till it until the plants get to big.

See the orange pumpkin peeking out?


The back beds have potatoes. Here are a few. I learned this year that green tomatoes do not mean they are not ripe yet but that they have peeked through the dirt and have been in the sun. So I am way over due to harvest my potatoes.


 So, I could spend way more time out here and weed my garden and make sure the bugs don't eat my garden, but as I always say, I'll do better next year.
This has been a tour of the Murphy farm all tips will be appreciated as you pass by the bucket.

4 comments:

ginmommy said...

I just love you Melanie! I think you are awesome growing all your yummy food and if I could I would gladly pass you a donation :)

Jill said...

Melanie, I love this! At our next place, I want a garden. And I may be calling you for some help! ;)

Tracey said...

Your tomatoes look incredible! You are doing a great job. :)

melanie said...

you girls are funny. thx.