I took some time yesterday morning to document where my little garden is on it's progress so far! I just ADORE my garden! I took a lot of pictures when many of my plants were seedlings, but I never posted them.
Well, to start out, I have a HUGE raspberry patch. I was able to downsize it a little this spring by sharing some canes with a few families from Church. I just can't bring myself to rip them out when they're wonderful producers and I know people go to the store and pay for canes. Hopefully, I will be able to give some more away next spring though, as the patch is still too big and hogging up too much room in my backyard. Here is a busy bee pollenating the soon to be raspberries!
Have you ever tried to take a picture of a bee? It's very hard. They don't stand still for even a second. But check out all the pollen this little guy collected!
This is our biggest cucumber so far! I had four cucumber plants that I brought up from seedlings, but the frost and/or transplanting trauma got to the other three of them. But this one cucumber plant seems to be doing really well and has a lot of little cukes growing! So it should be plenty for us!
Here is another little cucumber from the same plant. It still has the pretty bloom attached to it. We've all been learning a lot about gardens this year. For instance, Daniel didn't know cucumbers came from blooms. Now he knows!
Here are my two biggest tomatoes! I invested in a larger Early Girl breed tomato plant (on Lois Hole's recommendation) and I am so excited to have them ripen! The early girl is doing great! Lots of blooms on her! Should be a great producer!
Here are a couple more baby tomatoes coming along on the Early Girl! Sooooo exciting!!! And some pretty blooms too!
This is Layla's bean plant that she planted and grew at school for Grade 1 science. She's already quite a green thumb! She was the first one in her class to be able to take her bean plant home because hers was by far and away the most developed out of all of her classmates. So we picked a spot in the garden for it and it's been doing really well ever since!
This was a huge pumpkin bloom we had yesterday! I find they usually only open up for a day. We've had a few so far. They're so striking! But I have been noticing that the pumpkin flowers have been wilting and dying after they bloom. I'm worried that for some reason, they're not getting pollenated and the bees aren't getting to it. Even though there are lots of bees in the raspberry bushes not far away. Any other ideas why this would be happening?
Here's a shot of the whole pumpkin plant. There's more flowers coming! I hope some fruit starts to develop!
Daniel likes beets. This is my first year planting some. I started a first trial sowing of four seeds, and three came up. Here they are! Looking good!
Here's our first sowing of spinach! Yum Yum! If it looks a little picked over already, that's because it is! We've had quite a few big spinach salads already! A couple of the plants are looking like they're going to flower soon, so we've got to keep eating them before they bolt! But we also have a second sowing sprouting along nicely, so we won't be without spinach anytime soon!
Here's a shot of the garden along the back fence. There's some mammoth sunflowers quickly towering over everything else in the back. Then some sweet corn in front of it. With a couple Big Beefsteak tomato plants on either side. On the left you can see the spinach and then the beets. With a little bit of pumpkin peeking in the picture! On the right I have a row of nantes carrots, but not many came up of them. It's very disappointing, since we all love fresh garden carrots so much. But I do also have some mini carrots in a window box as well as a second sowing of nantes that seems to be having better luck with germination. And the beans in front of the lacking carrot row. Layla's big one, then I sowed a few more beside it.
One of the families I gave some raspberry canes to, traded and gave us some strawberry runners! This one is the largest and really flourishing! We got them in a bit late, but it's doing well. It will be having some blooms soon. You can see them developing!
I have a late sowing of peas, here's just a couple of them! It's been rainy and not too hot lately, which has been good for the peas germination, as they're a cool weather plant. I LOVE LOVE LOVE fresh garden peas! They're just like candy! We never have any to cook, because they all get eaten fresh right away!
Here's a picture of the Early Girl tomato plant. She's a beauty! Nice and tall! And so many blossoms coming along! It makes me so happy! Although, come later summer, I'm sure I'll be up to my ears in tomatoes, as I'm the one who likes them the most in my family. Layla's not a fan, and Dan only likes them in sandwiches.
Here's a look at the vegetable patch in our backyard! With Lewis standing guard!
Here's another that shows more of our raspberry bushes, as I couldn't get them all to fit in the last picture!
And Lewis, enjoying the backyard. He LOVES it out there! It's so nice to have a good sized, fenced backyard!
