title: 2017

It's been awhile since I've had a garden update, needless to say quite a bit has happened. The plants grew huge and beautifully in the basement and were then transplanted to the garden over mother's day weekend. Along with that David and his dad were tasked with putting in the electric fence to keep out the deer and bunnies we often see roaming our property. At this point all the post are in and lines are run, with the next task to run the electrical and get some juice through the wire!

We're trying a new trellising system for the indeterminate tomatoes (our new post hole digger was AMAZING!!) and continuing to use the basket weave for the determinate ones. We'll see how it works, a little concerned the way we tied the strings to the bottom of the plants will pinch them off when they start to grow. I've seen people tie a string across the bottom and that's what they secure each vertical string to, maybe we'll experiment with that next year.

Over all things are growing well. Our soils pretty shitty and we didn't really amend it this year. The challenge we're finding is how to amend so much square footage, but we're starting to compost, save wood shavings and ash from the fire place, hoping to get some horse poopy from our neighbors with the goal that doing all that every year it'll only get better.

For now I spend most nights doing a quick run of the hoe, trim and wrap up tomato branches and do a general walk through to check for bugs or any damage to the plants. Maintenance at this point. Since I've taken these pictures we've have tomatoes starting to bud and the health of the plants look even better.

We also have apples and peaches growing too! Anticipating harvest and eating fresh food with family this year.

Onions, broccoli, brussel sprouts and potatoes

Thank you machines :o)

My solution to meet my obsessive need to have straight lines

Cloth added to protect the leafy plants from moths laying their eggs. It works well but the cloth rips real easily. My step-dad has found a solution I may try next year instead.

Bush beans, edamame and squash plants added to the right

Pole beans. Experimental technique this year.

TOMATOES! Yes, we're crazy, but it looks so nice!

Peppers, trying the basket weave technique with them this year.

It's a cool feeling walking through these, can't wait until they build a wall!

Tomatillo

Brussel sprouts

Okra, this was our experimental crop (David likes to pick one different thing to plant each year). Heard it gets insanely big, so far they've been pretty finicky (we have 2 plants).

Pole beans

Bush bean

Strawberries! We've been trying to be diligent this first year to pick off the buds. You'll see below we missed one :o)

We have two rows of strawberries. This row a majority of them survived, the other row only 2 survived the transplant. Hoping their runners will fill in the row.

The orchard! 7 apple, 2 peach, one whoops (I thought it was a pear in the field that we transplanted)

Many hours later it looks great and hopefully will keep out our curious animal friends

My view every morning. I love peaking out and seeing the progress

It's started! I bought seed, planted it, it's growing, and I'm trying to not kill it all! I'm planting for my own garden as well as starting plants for others so the pressure is on. But as each year has proven, this garden will be one of great lessons learned, mistakes made, and memories created in the process. I'm constantly feeling challenged to not make forward progress because I feel as if I have no idea what I'm doing or don't have a good enough plan, but that's when David's been a great force to push me into action. For now let's keep these plants alive and hope for the best garden yet!

Here's a trip down memory lane real quick:
Year one starting our garden while we renovated our kitchen and using the flooring boxes for growing containers...

Pinching penny newly weds. Some things never change, ha!

Second year was this cold frame...

Third year was inside our work shed with this tiny south facing window...

These years were proof of how resilience nature is because we sure as hell weren't giving them that great of a start.

Last year was moving transition so I just helped mom with her garden. Let's just say she took full advantage of her live-in grounds keepers. It was fun and turned out to be a pretty kick-ass garden...

Here is to year five...

Containers ready. I've been collecting containers from annual plants for awhile with this purpose in mind. Hoarding acceptable in this situation

Little pot filler helper

1 week in - see the tiny sprouts!

3 weeks!

Light situation is constantly changing to keep up with the growth. Using these 8 footers that David plans to use in the barn. For now they're perfect for this space.