summer garden

I took a much-needed break from my fabric bolts this weekend and we finally put in our summer garden! Normally, it would be really late, but the weather has been so cold and rainy here that our timing worked out okay. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a "before" photo of the garden with chard, lettuce, beets, onions and cabbage, but we harvested all that, and have had some yummy salads with enough left over to give to neighbors.

Since we started so late, we actually had several plants that my mom likes to call "volunteers", probably started from the seeds of last year's fallen fruit, or in the case of a particularly healthy squash, maybe a squirrel's buried treasure. We had about 15 little tomatoes, and I salvaged the bigger ones - some with tomatoes already started! I'm not sure what kind they are yet, but I'll find out soon enough.

"volunteer" squash

"voluteer" tomato

After harvesting the spring produce, we dug out the dirt and worked some sand into the bottom of the beds where the soil is straight clay. Then we added in lots of organic compost and some fresh dirt along with the soil we had dug out. I think these are going to be some very happy plants!

Finally, we planted. Tomatoes, basil, eggplants, zucchini, squash, peppers and cucumber. For the cucumber we needed a trellis, so we converted one of the pallets my fabric arrived on. I think it's going to work really well!

Other parts of the yard are coming along, too, and hopefully I'll be able to show some "after" shots to match up to these "befores" soon.