A Tour of My Garden
When I look out my office window it’s hard to believe that just four months ago our vegetable garden was a lawn! Now, instead of a healthy crop of grass and dandelions, we’ve got food! Tons of food! The butternut squash has scrambled off its trellis, snuck through a hole in the fence and is now marching steadily through the front side yard. The pole beans wound their way up their wire scaffolding, onto the phone line and are headed towards the roof. And the peppers have been a grand success…they are three feet tall and absolutely loaded with fruit.
Every chance I get, I pop outside and examine my rows of fall peas (they’ve germinated!), pop a cherry tomato in my mouth (they are finally ripening), and make a wish for a nice warm fall (otherwise I’m going to have a lot of green ‘Japanese Black Trifle’ tomatoes on my hands).
I’ve put together a little tour of my garden below, but I’ve got a proposition for all of you. I want you to send me some photos of your kitchen garden. I just know you guys have great gardens out there, and since I can’t visit them all in person (wouldn’t that be nice?), I want the next best thing: your stories and photos. So pop outside, take some pics, and drop me an email (info@digginfood.com) with jpgs of your veggies. In return, I’ll put together a digital garden tour!
Our super sturdy squash trellis
I like to hang out here and watch bees buzz around
Butternut squash dangle off our fence
Curved bamboo stakes support our peppers
Peppers provide a bit of shade for fall lettuces
Fresh dill for our cucumbers
Zinnias mix with fall broccoli and greens
My favorite flower for kitchen gardens
ooh how pretty!! please consider including info/resources for us novice gardeners too!
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:02 pmI love my squash trellis! My colleague at Organic Gardening magazine designed it to be simple to build and very sturdy. It saves a lot of space in my garden and I think it will last for year. Here is a link to the plans on Organic Gardening’s website: http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-5-19-1482,00.html
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:56 amWow Willi…girl you’ve come a long way since I was out to see your place earlier this year. Can’t wait to see more of the changes you have going/are planning to have going in the front! Kudos!
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:55 amYour garden is absolutely lovely! I wish I could stay there for the whole afternoon, listening to the birds, bees, and the ‘plants growing’….;)
September 4th, 2008 at 8:34 amhi Willi, Amy here. Your garden and your website are both lovely. Do you have any suggestions for avoiding problems with leaf miners on spinach?
September 8th, 2008 at 12:33 pmWow, this is one of the most beautiful kitchen gardens I’ve ever seen! Mine is getting all overgrown and disease ridden. I’ve totally got to try some of those cucumbers. I grew Straight 8s this year. They did okay, but developed disease pretty quickly which caused the fruit to be mishapened.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:51 pmThanks so much for your nice comments! Amy, I have a problem with leaf miners on my Swiss Chard. The best way to control them is by placing a row cover over the spinach right after you seed. I am always too lazy to do that, but I’ve gotten pretty good control by removing the damaged leaves as soon as I see them. I’ve also noticed in the PNW, we usually have two generations of leaf miners. The first in early summer and the 2nd right about now. Jessica, for the record my ‘Satsuki Madori’ did not have any disease problems (but this is the first time I’ve grown them, so we’ll see about next year!).
September 8th, 2008 at 2:27 pm