Rearranging

One of the lovely features of square foot gardening is that one is always rearranging their produce. This morning I pulled out the spent bean plants and chard planting cabbage, carrots, cilantro and more beans in their place. It feels sad to pull up the old. but invigorating to plant the new. The snap peas are almost done producing.  I think I will plant cantaloupe in their place.

In a few short days I will see new growth. I love my garden. It reminds me of the old stuff in my life that is just hanging around taking up space and sapping nutrients from my soul. I need to do some rearranging there, as well. Plant some new seeds to enjoy the new growth. Tending the garden of my soul is well worth the effort.

Tending the garden of my soul.......

hmmmmm, there's a poem there, I just know it.  I'll be pondering that all day

What a mess!

I just got home from vacation and wandered back to the garden. My oh my what a week of no attention will do!  I have my work cut out for me. Good thing I took another day off.

There are tomatoes on the vines, and peppers on all three bushes. The cucumbers are gaining strength and the corn is getting taller.  I am excited to see what the next month or two will bring!

I need to plant some more melons. Three sisters plot is ready for beans. The weather is finally right for them. I love my garden. June gloom or no, summer is on the way!

The Lopez planting

Today as I watered the garden plot, I noticed that all of the Lopez family's seeds are sprouting.  The pumpkin, squash, sunflowers, wildflowers, carrots, and chives just broke through this week.  The children will be so excited!

My cucumbers have sprouted, but the watermelon has not. I think I will have to plant some more corn since only two of the 15 seeds I planted have germinated. The bush beans have taken over the plot where I put them.  I'll have to remember next year that they need a lot of room and 9 per square is too many.  I had to pull the lettuce up, it was too crowded with the beans. It may be too warm for them to grow now, but I think I will start another square anyway.

The tomatoes are coming along nicely, lots of flowers on each plant.  I will continue to pick out the suckers and try to contain them in their wire cages. Last year was a chaotic mess of tomatoes! This year will be nice and neat with any luck.

I love my drip watering system! Unfortunately not all of the planted area is set up with a dripper.  I have to remember to go out and water those areas. It has been fairly cool lately so it has not been a problem.  I will try to get out this week end and expand the reach of the drip system.

Naomi and Eli

Today Naomi and Eli came to help me in my garden! Blanca came too, of course.  We dug and planted and watered for almost two hours.  There are now petunias in the flower bed between the roses and sunflowers between the roses and the cactus. There are wildflowers on the east fence of the garden and a pumpkin mound in the corner.  Naomi wanted to make a sign that told that the garden with the pumpkin was hers. So I gave her some paper and she made a lovely sign. So cute!

We also planted a zucchini seed, some carrot seeds and some chives.  I hope some of it comes up.  The kids will be disappointed if it doesn't. They will come and water every other day or so.  We'll see how it goes.  We can plant the seed but God makes it grow.

Rent - a -student

This week end was rent a student week. I paid for 3 kids from youth group to come and work in my yard.  Malachi Hose was one of those students. He did amazing work for me.  Because of his hard work, I now have my garden plot all cleared out and ready for planting! Corn, beans and squash will go in the new section of the garden. Today I built the berms and got the space ready.  Tomorrow I will plant the corn. In a couple of weeks I will plant the beans and squash to build a "3 sisters" garden. I have been wanting to do this for years. We'll see how it works.

The idea is that the corn grows tall and supports the beans to grow on and the squash shades the ground to help with ground temperature. It sounds cool anyway.

Now my problem is, where to plant the melon? I need to expand the garden already!

Productive weekend

I've had several days off in a row this week, so I spent most of it in the garden. I decided to put the tomatoes and squash in a different part of the garden this year so they can grow without taking over my sfg squares. So Saturday I planted corn and peppers in my new raised bed, but the tomatoes went out in the newly tilled area.

 I bought two plants from the Fullerton Arboretum. I missed the sale this year so all they had left were tomatoes, all the peppers and eggplant were gone. I did find one of my favorites, though. Ibiis is the plant that produces yellow cherry tomatoes that we enjoyed so much last year.  I was not good to keep it in control so it took over the world, but this year I fully intend to maintain a normal sized plant.  We'll see how that goes.  The other tomato plant is a beefsteak variety.  I love large tomatoes with lots of flavor for my sandwiches.

Then I went to Walmart. They had a good variety of vegetable plants there, so I bought 3 colors of bell pepper and one more tomato plant. I really wanted to buy more vegies, but decided to hold off for a bit until I could make some good decisions. The plants look healthy. I am not convinced that Walmart can sell great  plants, so it's kind of an experiment.

I have today off, too.  5 in a row, pretty crazy, right? I will spend most of it in the garden again.  Life is good!

The pepper tree is gone

Yesterday I took the day off for a long Easter week end. As a worked around in the yard weeding and such, Fred chopped down the pepper tree. It was a bittersweet moment. That tree has been the play equipment of our kids for 20 years. Well, ok, no one has climbed it for the past 8 or nine years, but it has so many memories. It needed to go. Every year it gets tangled in the phone lines, it shades the garden, and it grows new shoots from the ground. I'm glad its gone. It was the last hurdle to being able to buy some laying hens.

It will take a week or so to get the mess cleaned up. I still have a raised bed to plant in my garden. So by the beginning of May I should have some chickens.

The garden will get a lot more sun now. Hopefully we won't have to battle with mildew this year. So long pepper tree; it's been nice.