June 18, 2009

Seems like lots of growth since the last post. Been raining a ton, but also some decent sunny days like today. Lima beans are taller than the stakes now. Tomatoes are getting up there - especially the beefsteak. Harvested some lettuce the other evening and ate for dinner tonight - pretty bitter, not sure why. Cucmbers (see second picture) have gotten large enough that they have fallen over and started acting more like vines, as has watermelon. Blueberries look very close to turning blue! Tomatoes in the front patch don't seem to be growing as well. I am excited to ammend the soil and have better growth next year. I also want to double or triple the size. The maintenance has not been very hard. Its the initial sod-breaking, tilling, planting that is tougher.

This shot is from last weekend - Sunday June 7. We've had crazy thunderstorms several evenings this week, combined with sunny days. I just went out to check on the garden and it has already grown a ton in the few days since this picture. My gardening neighbor gave me one of her extra zucchini plants that I planted in the back patch on the right.

I hooked up the rain barrel (finally) this past Saturday and in just one of the storms, the barrel was filled to the brim. Can't wait to use it - now of course I want more rain barrels. That was one storm, water from just one of our 4 or 5 downspouts. It would be awesome to capture all of that!

Sunday afternoon, found that a 4" long rat snake had gotten caught in the deer netting and died (I think I unknowingly ran over it with my push mower!)