Monday, May 7, 2012

a little garden update

Two steps forward, one step back.  Such is life sometimes and I guess gardening is no exception.  Before I fill you in on the setback, I'll let you see the progress.  Progress is more exciting anyway, right?


The garden peas seedlings have arrived in earnest now.  I guess that means it's time to run the twine for them to grow up onto the garden teepee.  They really look great and will be sending out shoots in no time, I imagine.


The tomato plants are getting a bit taller as well.  I had to stake a few of them as they were already beginning to lean.  The rest will be needing support shortly.  I guess I need to find some more bamboo stakes for them!


The most obvious, and fun, progress to watch in the garden this week has been the squash seedlings. They grew measurably every day so Paul suggested that I take a daily picture of them.  Here is their growth over the last 5 days.

Day 1:


Day 2: (after the hill was thinned)


Day 3:


Day 4:


Day 5: (isn't that amazing?!)


The one setback we experienced this week was the bunny family finding our little garden patch.  Once we saw evidence of bunnies, and another time, Paul actually saw the bunny hopping away.  All of our beets had to be re-sown, and the bunny thinned the cukes out for me.  We've seen no more evidence of bunnies since we added the little fence so we're hopefully the bunnies are finding other plants to graze.  And what bunny would brave that fierce sign!


Only now we're occasionally seeing chipmunks in the garden.  Philip thinks we should electrify the fence (ha!) but we haven't observed any garden damage. I'm hopeful they are just visiting to admire the seedlings.

4 comments:

  1. beautiful garden! That daily growth is so amazing to see.

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  2. Taking the daily pictures is a great idea for littles! I have a TON of garden questions! Last year I had a single raised bed like one of yours. This year I am expanding to something like two of yours. My fence last year was like yours, but removable so my kids could get in to pick. It was hard to keep the grass from growing up tall right next to the raised beds and certain plants kept growing onto and through the fence making it hard to remove later in the season. This year I planned to fence around the whole thing and then go into the aisle to pick.

    I guess my questions are:

    How do you keep the grass from growing out of control near the fence?

    How do you get into the garden (I can't see a gate in the picture)?

    How do you maintain your aisles?

    Do you feel you can pick the garden well with no aisle on the outside of the beds?

    I hope you can find time to send me some tips! I have had trouble finding images of someone who has a garden set up similar.

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  3. Your garden looks great! My husband & I were just talking yesterday how despite all the rabbits we have in the yard we have never had one in the garden. He tries to keep a little fence up and it's worked so far.

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  4. The garden looks wonderful, don't you just love bamboo. My tomatoes look so sad...especially now that I see yours. Our weather has been so crazy here, it has messed up everything.

    With All That I Am
    Carrie "The Handmade Homemaker"

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