Brandon here with a look at our little, but productive garden. This has been a fun year for trying out new things in our garden. Not so much new in the produce selection, but new as in methods to the madness. We love the little raised beds in this corner. They get a good amount of afternoon sun. Cool thing about this years garden is that most of it is grown from seed. I don't have a great place to do starts inside, so I wondered how I could do tomatoes and peppers without the traditional indoor starts. We discussed tenting the raised bed to make mini greenhouses and what do you know, IT WORKED! I made little A frame roofs for each bed with 1x2 furring wood and attached clear plastic painters drop-cloth with a staple gun. Sorry I didn't get a picture, but t kept it just hot enough to keep our seeds alive through a very cool March. In this picture, you can see our tomatoes: 3-Brandywine heirlooms, 3-Black Krim heirlooms, 2-sweet cherry, and 1-Yellow pear heirloom; some garlic, walla walla sweet onions, green onions, cilantro, Serrano peppers (need more tenting), zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, and lettuce (the massive bushes in the front right) We are planning on harvesting the lettuce more aggressively and replanting again since it grows so well. We may just try growing lettuce with the tents right into the winter. Oh the two pots on the right hold some ornamental gourds and to the right of the oak tree is a new strawberry patch.
Moving right along, along our back fence, you can see our beans (under heavy attach of noxious slugs) and peas in the distance separated by the viola. This may be the last year I do beans here. I don't think there is enough direct sun to get these things moving.
The peas, on the other hand, seem to like the shade and are creeping right up the stringers we put up.
Next to the house we planted two blueberry bushes last year. So far, they are ridiculously full of berries and seem to be overwhelming the small bushes. We wonder if we should build supports for some of the branches that are bowing to the ground. The kids are very excited for these to ripen.
