Summer Garden

There was something about this spring that made me plant a big garden. Was it the pandemic with limited food supply? Probably. I wasn't alone, many people have decided to grow gardens this year. Seeds were in limited supply, I was happy to have found some early on at our local feed store.

I couldn't plant in my normal plot as it had been taken over by Johnson grass and I decided I wasn't going to battle that horrible weed another year. I moved it across the yard near the tortoise pen. The ground was hard and not that great quality. Since there was no planning involved I didn't cover it last fall with mulch, which is a great way to turn crappy soil into nice soil. We do have a small electric tiller and I was able to scrape up the top few inches and get some seeds planted.

It's growing well now. We had a large round hay bale that got too wet when our tarp failed this spring so Sean used the skid steer to take it over to the garden for me to mulch it with. It was probably 700 pounds of hay I put down around the plants and walkways. Hay does a wonderful job of mulching the plants and keeping the moisture in the ground and keeping the roots cool and happy. I've had great luck with the deep mulching method of gardening. No weeds, very little watering and happy productive plants. It's a win win.

I'm not real great about remembering where I planted everything. I tend to draw up a garden plan and then make changes on the fly and not write them down. So this giant mass of vines came up and I assumed they were one of the three varieties of melon I planted (we LOVE melon). The vine kept growing and producing about 20 of these "melons". Finally I had to get on YouTube to figure out they are spaghetti squash and not melons. That was kind of a let down. I like spaghetti squash just not 20 of them. I've read that they store well, so maybe I can eat them all winter.

The vine in this picture is one of the other melon varieties: Early Silver Line Melon

No garden is complete, in my mind, without at least a small plot of zinnias. They are so beautiful and bring in so many good pollinators.

We've had a great haul so far with zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, blackberries and spaghetti squash. The early melons are almost there and there are no less than 20 little watermelons growing, the kids are particularly excited about those (which makes me happy). Happy gardening y'all!