New garden cart, compost etc

We bought a new garden cart at Home Depot for only $20. It's WAY better than the old one! It's much smoother to push, it holds more weight, and it fits between the rows of raised beds.

The new garden cart

Saturday morning I finished unloading the compost and filled in dirt in the strawberry pyramid. Al and Kaitlyn helped me move cinder blocks to the front flower bed by the tulips and put them along the edge of the bed. They also cleared leaves and weeds out of the flower bed.

Compost on the beds closest to the house

Filling the strawberry pyramid

Strawberries in the new pyramid planter

Tulip bed with cinder block edging

Yesterday I planted new strawberry plants in the pyramid. I also loosened the soil and mixed compost in 5 raised beds. I planted the onion sets and found out they didn't take up as much room as I had planned for them, so I planted extra bunching onions and carrots. I also planted garlic, beets, arugula, romaine and kale. (I only planted about half of the kale so there's room to start the rest the end of June.)

Apparently we need to raise the fence along the back of the garden because there were deer tracks through the garden and it looks like it got in at the back by the onions. After fixing the places where the deer stomped today, I planted cauliflower, broccoli, a marigold, buttercruch lettuce, and more romaine. Some animal dug up a few of the new strawberry plants so I replanted those too. I put up some CDs around the garden to deter the animals from going in there any more.  We'll see if it helps.

The squash and pumpkins sprouted yesterday so I brought them downstairs under the lights when I brought up the broccoli and cauliflower. Hopefully the weather will cooperate so we can plant the tomatoes on time because on the top shelf I moved the chain up as far as it will go and the tomatoes are right up to the light.  We got another shop light from Sue on Saturday too, so when we get new full spectrum bulbs we'll be able to use that for plants also.  The squash I started for Cathy and the watermelon haven't sprouted yet.

Cauliflower growing inside

Garlic

Cauliflower and beets

Broccoli

Marigold by the back fence

Animal dug up a strawberry plant

More fall cleanup

I pulled all of the tomato and pepper plants, pulled the plant labels, and stacked the tomato cages and other plant stakes.  I got some of the pumpkin vines cleaned up as well as a whole bunch of weeds.  After the Vikings game is done I plan to go back out and do more cleanup.  It's supposed to be windy but warm tomorrow so whatever cleanup I don't finish today I'll do while Kaitlyn is at school tomorrow.

Strawberry cleanup and raking leaves

Grandma and I pulled the weeds in the strawberry bed while Kaitlyn raked leaves and jumped in them.  When Al finishes his project with the dirt bike he'll grind up some leaves with the leaf blower so I can put them on the strawberries for mulch.

Kaitlyn having fun jumping in the leaves

Thanks Grandma!

My surgery went well yesterday.  Since I can't do much but sit here and recover Grandma Olive went out in the garden and pulled a bunch of weeds, especially that darned crab grass.  She also harvested a bunch of onions, garlic and peppers.

Some of the peppers, onion & garlic Grandma harvested

Some of the onions Grandma harvested

Surgery tomorrow, Garden Maintenance

In preparation for my gallbladder surgery tomorrow and not being able to be in the garden much for a while, Al and I got a lot of work done in the garden tonight.

We pulled a bunch of weeds, including the overgrown pathway by Jayne's fence.  We also finally made a trellis for the cucumbers to grow up.  Al accidentally pulled a cucumber plant with the weeds.  Good thing that wasn't the only one I planted. :)

Pulled lots of weeds, harvested carrots & beans

I harvested a bunch of carrots, wax beans, and some peppers today.  There are still a bunch of carrots ready to harvest, but I'll leave them in the garden until we're ready to use them.  Al took Kaitlyn to Hazel's birthday party so I could get some gardening done.  I want to get as many weeds pulled as possible before my surgery on Friday.  I managed to clear the rest of the walkways and weeded around the beans.  The pumpkins are spreading out so far I can't get through the end of a couple walkways, but we can get around other paths so it's not a huge deal.  We should have some nice pumpkins from those plants.

Today's harvest

New growth

The pains I've been having are from my gallbladder.  I'm meeting with the surgeon in a couple days about when they'll take it out, hopefully soon.  In the meantime I'm getting as much weeding done as possible.  We haven't gotten the newspapers and wood chips in the walkways yet so the weeds are growing like crazy there.

The squash blossoms have formed into fruit!  There are lots of green tomatoes on the plants so we should have a nice crop of them soon.

Buttercup Squash

Buttercup Squash

Tomatoes

Green Bell Pepper

Banana Peppers

Storm Damage

Memorial Day today.

Last night’s storm dropped a big branch from the tree by the garden & it left a huge hole in the yard when it fell.  Of course we forgot to retract the clothes line so that got bent.  Other than some other smaller branches that was all the damage I could see upon first glance.  When I was out checking for storm damage I discovered 2 ripe strawberries.  Kaitlyn & I ate them & they were delicious!  I got most of the beds where the tomatoes will be weeded so tomorrow I can do lots of digging to fill them in.

Branch on the clothesline

Hole left by the branch

Branch down from last night's storm

Squash & radishes

Spinach & arugula

Our first strawberries of the season

Radishes

Storms predicted & planting beans

It’s SO hot!  It’s 93 and very humid and they’re predicting severe storms sometime this afternoon & evening.  Kaitlyn helped me weed the beds for the beans, kale, peppers, & part of the pumpkin bed.  I got all of the wax beans, lima beans, & some dill planted.  There’s a black seeded simpson that came up on its own in the second bed from Jayne’s fence.  The amazing thing is it’s in the exact space it should be to mark the end of the row where it would have been planted by the kale & lima beans.  I was going to do some more digging to fill in the other planting beds but it’s too hot so I did more weeding instead.

Progress & Volunteer Plants

Spent most of the day pulling LOTS of weeds, including a whole bunch of dandelions.  Hopefully I got most of the dandelion roots since they had pretty much taken over the area where the onions were last year and the tomato beds are this year.  I thought we had harvested all of the onions last fall, but I discovered 3 onions so I pulled them & we’ll eat them as green onions in the next few days.   I finished putting the box supports in place for the asparagus so I can get that planted in the next few days.

Many of the peas are starting to come up.  As I was pulling weeds in the bed with the oregano I noticed several dill plants coming up that didn’t grow last year.  Since that bed is mostly herbs I’m just leaving them and weeding around them in case my dill that I intentionally plant this year don’t do well.  If they do, then I’ll just have extra dill. J

There are a couple Black Seeded Simpson growing out of the side of one of the planting boxes, but I left them for now.  I’ll harvest them when I put the newspaper and wood chip mulch down.  There were a couple romaine plants growing in the box where I’m putting the pumpkins, but I just pulled those with the weeds.

Peas

Peas

Arugula

Black Seeded Simpson

Oregano

Green onions