Sometimes, in this climate, garden posts are 6 months apart. In the middle of summer they are every week so here is 8 days worth of progress in the Pickleman Family Garden. One of the more rewarding experiences to share is gardening which happens to be a highlight of my summers after those long Canadian winters. If you agree with me, I would recommend you head on over to the Garden Journal Challenge by @gardenhive and read about other blockchain gardens or even post about your own. I have already entered for July and am now just here for the sharing!
I am somewhere around the 6th year of The Pickleman Family Garden on #hive. What started as a reclamation of lawn and repurposing to a simple garden veggie box has become and expanding and perpetual yearly tradition of exploration.
This edition, we pruned, fertilized and weeded and see what happens.
Last Update
The last update, temperatures were coming down from a heat wave, the hydrangeas had popped, and the tomatoes had grown a foot.
This week I managed to take a picture at close to the same time after a few hot dry days and the tomatoes have grown almost as much as that spaghetti squash with the huge leaves. I have also started constructing woody grass structures bound at the top with twine for the vines to climb on.
Veggies!
The cherry tomatoes are starting to look more like grape tomatoes. Growing big and showing no sign of turning red but the size, firmness and texture underneath the skin make me thing they are gonna be awesome!
Our beefsteak tomato plants are only a couple feet high by comparison but coming along! These are my personal favourite kind of tomato as I love to slice them onto sandwiches and pizza most of all. Probably a couple weeks til this one is ready but you can see the next one in line and a couple flowers that will hopefully be 3 and 4.
Behind my little guy, you can see the squash royal rumble going on, with the huge spaghetti squash leaves on the vine that is well over 6 feet tall.
As they climb up, and now across as it reaches the top of the fence, it looks like some critters are snacking and taking care of some of the pruning for me. Birds or squirrels most likely but I would rather they knocks the top off an 8-foot vine rasher than devour them as seedling as they have done in the past.
My morning pollinator shifts seem to be paying off as the zucchini flowers coming, which have been predominantly male with no fruiting, are starting to have little yellow zucchinis on them! We should be swimming in them in about a week and will probably have fresh ones to share well into August.
The peppers are mostly in flower stage so far. Jalapenos, habaneros, mad hatters and a couple other varieties going from relatively mild to inferno hot. This is the first of the Ghost Peppers which are inedibly hot but delightfully menacing! I will harvest these this year to make ghost pepper salt, some hot sauce, and I get requests from restaurants who infuse vodka with them to make exotic spicy cocktails! They look spicy already!
Greens
Our bed of greens has been great so far this year. In years past, the weeds were left a little too much and it was hard to tell which was leafy greens, and which were sour tasting leaves. We have kept on it this year and the netting seems to be working well enough. Every supper, the girls are able to visit the garden and return with a bowl of salad enough for 2.
One of the greatest hits this year is the kale which just sprouted from the ground on its own from last year. It grew so fast that it went to seed before I even noticed and I thought we were out of luck. So, I pruned every one of the tops that had any sort of seed and now it it back, leafing and producing big bags of this nasty superfood I am sure some people like! ;)
Blooms
While all the veggies are transitioning from growth to flower and now onto producing, the early summer blooms are taking center stage. I love these blazing orange lilies that pop up every year. So glad to have some in my yard as I see them all over town growing wild.
There is even one snuggling up to my hydranrgeas which are big and puffy and white.
The Orange Trumpet Vine is growing so fast it is threatening to pull down my tool shed but so far so good. It is a wall for my wild flower garden which is slowly transforming from weeds to weeds that have flowers. The plentiful orange blooms attract the pollinators which visit the other flowers and help with the proliferation.
This is the summer of cost containment when I normally overspend at the nursery, especially on the annual flowers. I have been holding out for a HUGE sale I take advantage of every year and it feels like I am short on flowers this season. I have a plan fore that I might just share on the next episode!
So far so good.
Limiting my spending this year has worked out so far! I took advantage of an offer for $100 worth of free soil and fertilizer and have had to do some pollinating on my own but we are off! A wonderful mix of spring hot sun scattered with the odd rainy day has kept the garden watered with rain water and the water barrel full enough to cover the dry days. We are through initial pruning, fertilized for fruiting and preparing for an onslaught of tomatoes and squash. So far so good indeed!
Thus ends this chapter of the garden update. Really looking forward ot the first veggies being ready to harvest but patience is the name of the game.
Mom started me along my path of growing stuff when I was a kid. Motivated by so many blockchain blogging gardeners, I figured I would plant and share and learn as I reclaim as much grass space as I can. It has turned out to be a fruitful experience and I hope to inspire you to sow and grow no matter what your location or experience level is.
Wherever you are...JUST GROW!
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