While in Switzerland...

While in Lucerne, Switzerland we visited a local grocery and I was amazed by the selection and size of the produce! Everything is organic, Europe doesn't use pesticides like the U.S does. 

Europe uses crop rotation, natural fertilizers and a stewardship of the land to ensure production for generations.

Showing off to Dad

Today I got to show off my garden to my Dad. It's August 4th and the garden, and yard is in full bloom!

July 4th!

July is when you really take a look at the progress of the garden. All of the rows are established. You can see where some plants may crowd other rows, especially for us because we densely plant our rows, to get the most out of our garden. Really important to thin out, if you haven't already because throughout July and August the garden will be its biggest yet! We start harvesting greens at this point, kale in the lower right and collards above (see pictures below). Everything else needs time.

RIP 2016 Garden

Daniel and I have a contingency plan for hail storms, including hard hats and tarps to cover our garden in the case there is a storm. We have, in the past, been able to save our garden by covering our garden before the storm hits. One year we could hear the hail coming, it sounded like a train and had fair warning! But this year we didn't see the warning in time.

After it was over I went out to salvage what I could by removing the ice from the seedlings. The tomatoes and peppers took the biggest beating. We had purchased these as seedlings so the good news was that they could be replaced with a visit to the local nursery. Everything else was green but had few leaves, so the verdict was out.

Update: We replaced the tomato and pepper plants and everything else recovered. The hail storm put our growing season behind a few weeks. However, it is October now and we are still harvesting tomatoes, collards, Swiss chard, kale and cabbage.

Asparagus and Artichokes

I love to plant perennials that come back every year. It is only our third year for asparagus and artichoke but they are peaking up early this year. We also have blue berries, black berries, raspberries an cherry and apricot tree. The neighborhood used to be an apple orchard so we always get a share of apples from our neighbors as well.

Artichoke

Asparagus

Blue Berries

Sprouts!

Within just a couple of weeks seeds are sprouting all over the garden! Spinach, Kale, Collard Greens and radishes are peaking up. This is when you start envisioning your garden in full bloom,






 

Mark your rows when drinking!

Most important, especially if you mix alcohol with seed planting, mark your rows with labels, I can't tell you how many times we have been like "did we plant that there?".

Planting Begins!

 This is one of my favorite times of the year, when we start planting our seeds! I will tell you that we try direct seed most of our garden. There are a few crops we will either start indoors or buy seedlings for including peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant. But the real fun is watching the sprouts push up out of the ground. The possibilities of the garden are then evident.

Planting seeds...

 We are planting a variety of seeds this spring we always mark our calendar as to what we have planted and when.  I recommend that you keep your calendars from year to year, at least a five year rotation of calendars. You can then start to see patterns in the weather and  and improve or adjust just when you plant your seeds and seedlings.

We also update our calendar when we harvest or transplant seedlings as it helps us plan the next year planting cycle. For example if I know that my cauliflower is going to take all summer to mature I could plant, perhaps, some radishes in that area before the cauliflower blocks the sun. When  you have a small space you want to take advantage of some slow growing crops.

New Composter

This year we were able to upgrade our compost process to a more eye appealing barrel system that rotates. We are finding that we have rich soil to use every 4-6 weeks. We bought it from Costco.