Garden Update

The past couple of weekends have been busy in our back yard. Last weekend Joe buried a water line out to the garden. This weekend we mulched the area running around the side and the back to expand the area to include several mounds of strawberries, melons and squash that were previously in the wild. The mulch and brick perimeter tidied up the area and more than doubled the size of the garden. We did not supplement or weed the soil, and most likely this will just be an area for large bush and vine plants.

Joe refers to this plot as “bestial”. I agree. The tomatoes are doing their best to intimidate the carrots, romaine, and onions. I think there is also some garlic hiding down in there. The squash plant is already producing fruit, but they are all about the size of Scooby’s thumb right now. Today I added a pepper plant or two to grow in the shade of the tomatoes, which will protect then from the harsh afternoon sun. Hopefully as the tomatoes grow taller, there will be more vertical layers to the garden rather than this mess of green.

The romaine is doing very well and I probably waited a couple days too long to pick this first batch – the leaves are nearly 6″ long. We did cook up some broccoli the other night, but only ate a couple bites before getting completely turned off by the steamed worms that I missed. I’ve decided broccoli is best bought in the store for the amount of space they take up (and even the cost of the plants), but it was fun giving them a shot this spring.

Scooby has been enjoying spending his mornings and afternoons (when shady and not too hot) outside. He is either chasing down pinwheels I placed to scare the birds away, sitting on strawberry and squash plants, or, and this is most often the case, dragging the hose around pretending to water the garden.