End of June

The squash and zucchini are in full bloom now. Looks like they will be pretty full.

The Sweet Banana peppers have a few on them growing pretty quickly in the heat.

The cantaloupe will need to be supported this week. I'll use fence posts and some metal fencing and tie it up as it grows.

The lettuce and carrots are doing well and need their first thinning. From left to right there is:
'Vivian' Romaine
'Danvers Half Long' Carrots
'Burpee Bibb' Buttercrunch Lettuce
'Nantes Half Long' Carrots

The 'Bushmaster' bush beans planted on 6-28 in 2 rows were up.














The 'Elliot' & 'Bluecrop' blueberries were doing well after planting.

Abnormally Warm - Good For Part of the Garden....

Broccoli is looking decent, but I'm concerned about the early heat.

The zucchini and squash are taking off. Won't be long before I will need to thin the radishes. It's loving the heat.

Another BED!!! Berries!

Here's an overview shot. Notice something to the right?

Well, shopping at the local garden center with my 2nd oldest son usually results in more work later. He's the one who found the deal on the fruit trees. He also found berry bushes. He found them marked down half off. So we came home with 'Bluecrop' and 'Northland' blueberries and 'Navajo Thornless' blackberry bush. You need 2 varieties to cross-pollinate the blueberries, but the blackberries don't. However, I think we'll be adding at least one more blackberry bush.

This time we thought that rather than bring in garden soil, we would rent a tiller and amend the soil. We were actually quite surprised with the how good the soil looked. Because blueberries and blackberries requireacidic soil, we decided we would need to revisit the amendments. We kept the cottonseed meal and greensand and also added peat moss, hummus & manure mix, and some mushroom compost. I will also mulch later with pine straw.

Progress

The zucchini and squash are growing well and the radishes are off to the races.

The 2 rows of pole beans are looking good. It probably won't be too long before I need to start training them and the cantaloupe up on supports.

The lettuce and carrots are coming up and doing well.







The broccoli seems to be getting stronger. I'm still not sure we have enough time in the season to get to produce.

Things Are Moving Along!

This is an overhead shot of the two beds on 6-21-11.












Well, the first rows of bush and pole beans are up. I planted 1 row of 'Royal Burgundy' beans on 6-5 , 1 row of 'Blue Lake 274' on 6-11 and 1 row of 'Mellow Yellow' on 6-11 for bush beans starting at the break between beds on the 2nd bed. I planted the pole beans further down by the cantaloupe to train up later. Descending down from the cantaloupe, I planted 'Kentucky Blue Lake Pole' on 6/6 and 'Kentucky Wonder' on 6-11. They are all through the ground. I will be planting another row of bush beans 'Blue Lake 247' again, further down.



I'm also planting some rosemary and peppermint on either side of the cantaloupe.











Between the squash and zucchini I planted 1 nasturtium at each end and interspersed 'Cherry Belle' radishes in between them. Both plants are supposed to discourage squash bugs. Nasturtiums are pretty flowers and also edible. I'm not a fan of radishes, but my 2nd oldest son likes them in salads.





Today I started staking and caging some of the tomatoes. I plant a mix of the potato leaf, bushy tomatoes and minis. I find that I get the best harvests when I keep them staked and caged and frequently prune them. I'm pretty ruthless with my haircuts! Many fellow gardeners have been shocked how much I cut them back (carefully, in the proper place to keep the plants blooms growing) I find the plant diverts its energy to heavy fruit production with less stems and leaves. A later post will show one of extreme pruning sessions! ;-)

Even though its pretty late to put fruit trees in the ground, there was a half price sale locally. We purchased two semi dwarf varieties - Semi-Dwarf Honeycrisp and Semi-Dwarf Ozark Gold so they can cross pollinate.

The broccoli has been 'tippy' so I put in some short fencing and few stakes to help support it until it gets a good strong base.

Getting the Plants in the Ground

The 1st bed is fully planted. The 2nd bed has all the bedding plants in, but beans, lettuce and carrots from seed will have staggered plantings.














The little plant at the bottom of the 2nd bed is a cantaloupe. It will later be supported to grow vertically.
We added broccoli when the people at MSU said it wasn't too late to start it here in mid Michigan. I'm not sure, but we'll give it a shot!





Now we just need to move the removed sod and re-purpose it elsewhere in the yard. Then we need to get some fencing up to keep the deer out.

Starting the 2nd Bed

Here is the digging for the 2nd bed. This was started on 6-5. The soil and the amendments were added last night.

The 2nd bed now framed in, same dimensions as the other. You can see the big sod squares between the two beds. We will be using it to help around the foundation of the house.

Here is the 2nd bed planted, except for the staggered plantings of beans, carrots and lettuce. This bed has the tomatoes, herbs, beans and single cantaloupe plant!

Soil Prep for the Beds

After originally only planning 1 bed this year, we decided to go ahead and do 2. I'm SO happy! More Veggies!

The 2 beds are 4 X 24 each. We had 7 yards of topsoil/compost blend delivered.

To that I will be adding 1 cup of greensand per bed and 2.75 # bag of cottonseed meal divided between 2 beds

The Beginnings of our Raised Bed Garden

Here is the beginning of our first raised bed. The dimensions of the framed bed will be 4' X 24'. There will be two of them and because of local wild life, we will need to fence them in when finished.

First step was to remove the sod in dimensions of 5' X 25'. My son Josh was the he-mean to do all the labor on the hottest weekend we've had so far this year.

New Gardening Season 2011

Well, we just moved into our house and I NEED to start a garden. Since the yard has been receiving chemical weed control and fertilizer, I really don't trust the soil. We stopped the poison immediately and plan on keeping our beds as organic as is possible with much of the neighborhood using the spray on stuff. We decided that raised beds with topsoil added might be the safest choice for this year.

Since I prefer square foot gardening (at least my own version of it) I eventually want two beds side by side that are 4' X 24' but we have some drainage issues we need to deal with over the summer. So for now I get one of the beds. In addition its quite a late start to planting and the ground is very wet. We've had SO much rain.

Since I'm limited in space for the summer crops, I'm planning on
6 tomatoes (mostly heirloom)
2 banana peppers
1 sweet pepper
1 jalapeno pepper
4 rows of bush beans
1 row of pole beans
1 zucchini
1 summer squash
and herbs interplanted in garden (basil, oregano, thyme, sage and maybe tarragon)

Since spent 15 years gardening in the midsouth, I have some concern about what's in store for this year up north. Stay tuned for posts on the set up and prep of our beds this weekend. Hopefully we'll get the plants in by the first of next week.