This is the Garden for Spring 2010. For last years' Garden page click here
Late February snowstorm, ground's not quite ready for planting.The beer's nice and cold, though.	You can see some of the fence sections have fallen over

Tranquility

More snow carnage, can see the dormant raspberry vines by the fence

Sammy pooping

Everything has a twelve inch snow hat on it!

So it's now mid March 2010, the pictures above were taken about three weeks ago. It has been aroung fifty or sixty degrees during the days and late thirties to upper forties during the nights. I'm starting to think about planting seeds now, maybe I'll wait a week to reduce the chance of frost at night, although the seeds themselves will take at least a week or so to start sprouting. I have to do the traditional pick up of the winters worth of dog poop from two large dogs in the backyard and rake the brush out of the garden. My old wooden stockade fencing is also starting to really fall down (about twenty sections are really rotted)

The deck, now free of snow, March 12

Garden area needs some work, untouched since November

Chives and Parsley starting to grow

Raspberry vines coming back

Did some weeding

Dandelion stalks are killing me!

Spring lawn work

Everythings coming out, spider nest freshly hatched

Baby spiders are everywhere

Weeds grew back before I could till the garden

Raspberries growing in, May 6th

Another view

Chives are starting to flower

Bean seedlings and lettuce seedlings

Really need to fix this fence

A little horseplay going on

Alrighty, May 6th, time to till the garden and start putting seedlings in. I should also trellis up the raspberries and fix the fence. No more fear of frost, let's get planting! Gonna do the same thing, put zuchinnin and summer squash by the raspberries and I am going to plant more spices, rosemary and others. I'm also thinking of putting some flowers around to bring bees and other helpful critters. This year, things started to grow real early after it was like 95 degrees in April, there were a few cold nights since then, though. This year there has been just enough rain, not like last year when it rained for like two months straight.

Soil tilled and compost and peat moss mixed in

Seedlings planted

First watering

Raspberries going nuts

The kid about to be put to work ... Ugh!

Alrighty, the very beginning of June, the plants are starting to grow, fence still needs to be fixed and zuchinni plants need to be transplanted next to the new fence. School has slowed down and i finally have some time

Plants in the beginning of June, tomatoes getting bigger by the minute

Starting to fix fence sections, tilled a site for zuchinni and summer squash

Construction site

Made a new gate out of fence sections

Side view of garden

Beans growing in by trellis

Cucumber plants starting to grow in foreground

Need to get tractors working

Squash plants in by new fence so they won't take over garden

Zuchinni and summer squash

Yard is starting to look a bit cleaner, fence repaired

Basil, Parsley and Chives

Sammy with an orange and celery he stole from the compost pile

Karma on guard

Alrighty, it is the 24th of June, plants are starting to take off, we've had a good mix of sunny and rainy weather for a good crop. I'm seeing small squashes coming out, have already picked two small batches of green beans and can see mini peppers coming in pretty well.

Peppers, beans and cukes growing well

first batch of beans

Planted some pickling cukes and more Basil, will put a trellis in the cuke pot so they can climb

Basil, Parsley and Chives getting bigger

Tomatoes busting out

Squash growing in

Side view

Other side view

Raspberries starting to grow

Peppers and beans getting even thicker

Second batch of green beans, a day later

Sammy and Karma on guard

Tomatoes becoming too heavy, need to support them more

Had to add chicken wire to sides of garden to keep Sammy and the rabbits out

Lattice fixes the problem

It's nice to have fresh spices for dinner!

First batch of cucumbers

Rainy day, not many of those this year

Pickling cucumbers trellised up

Getting taller, starting to droop with fruit

Berries and squash

Finally seeing some fruit although Sammy keeps eating them

Tomatoes overflowing over the lattice

Cucumbers still doing well, producing a lot

Spices doing well

Pickling cukes getting larger, have about thirty of them

So now it is August 14. We've had a hot dry summer, the cucumbers produced for awhile and since I was somewhat remiss on watering them, they died off pretty much. The tomaotoes are producing like crazy now and we've had a lot of the yellow lemon boy ones. The zuchinni produced for a bit and died out. Our peppers, both sweet and hot are growing and we still have a steady supply of beans and berries.

Ripe tomatoes, August 5 picking

Basil and parsley starting to die out, August 14, hard to keep it from seeding although the leaves are still tasty

Tomato vines heavy with fruit

Cubanelle sweet peppers

Bell peppers about ready

Our recent pick of tomatoes, gonna make sauce with the yellow ones for an experiment ... they are good

Second picking of tomatoes, we've gotten about 60 so far, bell peppers too

Made a few batches of really good yellow tomato sauce

This sauce starts by skinning the tomatoes, fresh basil and Garlic

Basil and Garlic are chopped and sauted in a frying pan

Then the tomatoes are chopped and added and after simmering for a bit with some salt and pepper, it is blended

Third picking of tomatoes

So it is now September 22, 2010. The tomatoes are still producing, I still use the Basil and Chives. Cukes are gone, squash is gone, peppers are still producing. I think I will make some smaller raised beds next year over by the raspberries to help manage the weeds and rabbits. Getting a bit chilly at night and in the morning, I know frost will be here within a month, the first indicator of frost is usually the Basil which turns black instantly.

Late September, garden is producing lots of tomatoes but slowing a bit

Tomatoes and weeds taking over

Fourth picking

Zuchinni and Rasberries getting overtaken by weeds

November 13, 2010 official first killing frost. The first sure sign is when the basil turns brown overnight. These picture were taken on the 28th of November as I have been slacking on updating this page as school has been really consuming my time. The parsley and chives are still holding out, but garden needs to be cleaned up and put to bed for the winter. It's been a bit mild, we had one small burst of snow a few weeks ago which melted the next day and temps have been mild, in the 50's. It's now starting to get colder with temps in the 30's and i suspect snow will be here soon.

Sammy coming in from the cold

Garden looking pretty dead

Raspberries gone

Basil completely gone, parsley and chives hanging on