Thursday, March 19, 2009

Go, Garden, Go!

Let's just start with --We're not THAT kind of farm.


We are on our third spring at Blue Heron Farm and my second with a garden. Other than the 400 pounds of cucumbers and google bushels of cayenne peppers last summer,I have yet to get very good at this gardening thing.

But I have vowed to try harder this year.

Back in early February, we constructed some raised beds/giant container gardens out of fencing that blew down during IKE. We filled the bottom with hay for drainage and the rest with two years worth of old, composted goat poo. Yay, home grown fertility!

I then bought whatever I found at the store without first checking in with my numerous farmer friends who ARE that kind of farmer, and planted a lot of stuff totally out of its season.

sigh.

Some of the kinder, gentler farmers tried to give me hope that a few of my things might still grow and not to tear them out yet. So imagine my surprise when I picked my first snap pea today. They're growing! I'm doing it! I honestly do not have the same hope for my Brussels sprouts, though the plants look great today. I think the heat will probably kill them before they grow their veg.

I know many people grow their own gardens - even in the city. But honestly I am still in awe of and have total respect for every single person who can grow more food than weeds. I hope to join your ranks soon. Here are a few pics of how it's going.
snap peas


chinese cabbage


broccoli



In the "too late" category, with the peas and broccoli, I also have Brussels sprouts.

In the "too early" category, I have green eggplants and snap beans.

In the "right on time" I have strawberries, tomatoes, basil, bell peppers and jalapenos. Go, garden, go!

3 comments:

Katarina said...

Now that's weird! I was coming in to get the camera to take pictures of my garden (or lack of it). I was out today working on our raised bed gardens (out of fencing that blew down during IKE). While my garden sits on my desk.

Michael@greenakeys.com said...

Congratulations!!!
Next year, you'll be an expert on the timing-- the best way to learn is to do it wrong. It looks like you've got great soil and then all you need is water..... I so want that snap pea....I'm planting my peas, strawberries, cold weather stuff this weekend.

I saw no weeds in those pictures so maybe your idea of weeds and my idea of weeds are different.
The weeds should also be pretty calm this year since your setup is new--- its the second and third year that I find the weeds are worse.

-Annette (just realized I was on mikes account....)

Blue Heron Farm said...

The raised beds are weed free so far. Totally beats last year's attempt to fight our Bermuda grass.

And that soil? Almost 100 percent poop. (Composted, for the most part, with hay)

Rock on, goat poop! The bottomless (no ironic non-pun intended) source of fertility.