☼ Grow your own damn Food! ☼

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These weekly posts are to share the progress of our garden; sharing photos and our gardening experiments and will hopefully inspire you to grow your own garden too! :) 

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Our front garden bed is looking much more like a garden bed which is definitely exciting. 

We planted the zucchini last week and they are continuing to healthily thrive. Since our transplanted tomatoes were so terrible and we were gifted those lovely tomato plants from our landlords, we turned over the dwindling ones and planted our new happy plants instead. We also planted the pepper plants we got last week along the squash and uprooted the kale that wasn't doing much at the end of the tomatoes as well. So now everything in that bed is green and looking, well, like a garden.

[tomatoes and peppers]

[peppers and zucchini]

My sister (over at Little Mountain Haven) also gave us three of her extra tomato plants that we made room for. She also gifted us some melon plants which we also planted yesterday in the front garden bed. Exciting! We've never grown melons before and it's a good space to let them sprawl out since the soil isn't the richest in the back of that bed and we didn't want to plant too much there. 

[tomatoes and melons]

[watermelon]

We pulled up all our radishes since the plants were bolting and no radishes were actually forming beneath the soil. We think it may be because we did a hugel culture in that bed so there might not have been enough soil for the radishes to want to form in. It's all an experiment, that is for sure! Well our kale and mustard greens are still very happy in the bed and we've been harvesting kale already for smoothies in the morning. There's  nothing more amazing then just stepping out barefoot into your garden in the morning and picking fresh greens for your breakfast. Bliss!

All the other greens are still steadily growing. Lettuce is looking healthy. We actually have some random peas coming up in the third bed too and we're not quite sure if it was the birds that moved them or… well, something else, we're not sure. We moved the bean trellis from the front bed as well because it was in the back where, like I mentioned, the soil isn't the richest but also because it's under the cover of the house so wouldn't get the rain meaning more watering. 

Peas and cucumbers are still growing. The strawberries have been flowering for a while now but we've been picking off the flowers until they become a bit more root bound. I think we're at the point now where we will let them grow so hopefully we will have strawberries soon. What's interesting as well is that the strawberries in the ground look much healthier than the ones in the pot. Hmm.

We have some New Zealand spinach starts growing inside that will go in the ground in a week or so. 

That is all this week! Hope you had a lovely long weekend! 

If you found this article to be helpful, please consider a small donation or visit the shop. Thank you for your love and support.

☼ Grow your own damn Food! ☼

. . . . . . . . . .

These weekly posts are to share the progress of our garden; sharing photos and our gardening experiments and will hopefully inspire you to grow your own garden too! :) 

. . . . . . . . . .

Okay, so this week…

Our Zucchini starts were planted. We have 3 plants and, as I've mentioned in previous posts, are doing fantastic. One of them was looking a little droopy when we first planted them but it's been several days now (and a wind and rain storm later) and they are all looking super healthy and strong and getting bigger. We mulched with grass clippings around them as well since our front garden bed is quite dry in comparison to our other beds, and we'll keep doing so to add more nutrients into the soil. 

We also planted 3 of our cucumber plants to start. Just like the zucchini they are doing really well and are nice and strong. We planted them against the pea trellis so they can climb that. We have two more cucumber plants that we are waiting to plant for a few days because we wanted to see how the first three would be doing, and since we were getting rain this week. But they all look great--again, even after the rain and wind. 

The current bush is forming its flowers and just today we looked and they are forming the berries! :)

We transplanted our tomatoes… the spindly little starts we had inside. We really don't think they are going to make it, they've been pretty stagnant. But we planted them anyway, spaced them out, and mulched with grass clippings. Generally you're not supposed to mulch around tomatoes because the grass will put too much nitrogen in the soil, but since this soil is so dry we are for now.

[can't even see them!]

We also added the drift wood to the fence. Still needs a few more pieces but we're having fun and are in no rush. 

Our amazing landlords ended up gifting us some of their extra tomato plants--we hadn't even asked, they just had extra ones and gave them to us (yay for manifesting!). So we now have some tomato plants waiting to be planted. The rain has put off some of our planting but we're okay with that. It's funny how things work out that way. Certain things we were going to plant but decided to wait and then we get this crazy rain storm that made us glad we waited. 

It's fun sharing with your neighbours. Our landlord also told us to help ourselves to their lettuce and greens in the cold frame that has just been growing like crazy. And we have the same policy with them--which I expect we'll have an abundance of certain things, especially kale. Plus it's just fun to trade. Cory met our other neighbour as well who has a garden and she is eager to gift us some extra squash plants. I have yet to meet her but she sounds really nice. :)

Saturday was Nelson's Garden Fest so we had fun checking that out. We picked up a few pepper plants since ours have failed miserably and are waiting to plant those until probably next weekend. I also picked up some succulents and a cute tea pot with plants in it for my work room since I want to green it up a bit. It's just another one of those awesome things, seeing the community out and about sharing and selling their garden goods and smiling. I love that it's summer and we have garden festivals and markets to look forward to. And more local produce coming in again! Yayy!

On Sunday we built two bean trellis out of bamboo and twine. We haven't planted the beans yet (again, the rain). We didn't have too much time that morning before I was heading into town for Mother's Day to see family, but it was nice to get the trellis made and see that front bed coming together to look more like a garden bed.

The rest of the garden is doing well also. The greens are all looking bigger and stronger, slowly but surely. The green house is still thriving. We thinned out the kale a bit, but still have a bit more to do since we should end up with one kale plant per spot. 

  

[happy peas and strawberries]

We also harvested half our mustard greens this week (our first harvest!) and I sautéed them for supper. It was delicious!

Alrighty, that's all for now! Hope your garden is thriving and lively! :) 

If you found this article to be helpful, please consider a small donation or visit the shop. Thank you for your love and support.

☼ Grow your own damn Food! ☼

. . . . . . . . . .

These weekly posts are to share the progress of our garden; sharing photos and our gardening experiments and will hopefully inspire you to grow your own garden too! :) 

. . . . . . . . . .

This week we did lots of transplanting! The front beds saw their first plants when we transplanted the kale starts. We also mulched them with grass clippings. We are honestly not sure what to expect as they are looking rather sad after a couple days of being out--especially compared to the kale that we direct seeded that is almost ready for harvest! If they don't make it then we have room to plant something else, right now they're tucked at the side of where the tomatoes and peppers will be once they're ready to transplant. 

Oh and pretty flowers are still popping up in the front beds too ^_^

In the front beds… we transplanted some more lettuce in "bed #3" as well a few mustard green starts that are admittedly looking rather pitiful as well after a couple days. The lettuce still look good though! 

In "bed #2" we transplanted the broccoli starts behind the row of direct seeded broccoli from last week. We also transplanted a row of bok choi and collards in front of the spinach planted in the back last week. 

The seeds that we direct seeded last week are starting to come up, including the broccoli which has always been a tricky one for us to grow so we're rather excited and hopeful about that.

The greenhouse is still booming. I have a bet going with Cory that within the week we'll be ready to harvest kale, it's just getting so big so quickly. The mustard greens we need to start harvesting as they are getting big and rather spicy! 

The peas are looking great! And the second row we planted last week has started to come up. 

This week we also went on an adventure looking for cool driftwood to try and pretty up the back fence. It's a work in progress and hasn't gotten very far but we did find some cool pieces, now we just have to decorate. ;) 

Lastly, I don't think we can wait much longer before transplanting the zucchini and cucumber, they are getting so big so fast! Cory made little supports for the cucumber since they're getting so tall; using chopsticks and twist ties haha. Creative. We are probably going to have to plant them soon though even if it's before the technical last frost--we've had super hot summer weather all week so we're optimistic. 

Well, that's all this week, been super busy with work so I'll be getting back to that now. ;) Hope you're all having a lovely week and enjoying some warm weather and that your gardens are thriving! 

If you found this article to be helpful, please consider a small donation or visit the shop. Thank you for your love and support.