The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy around our place as I work to get the outdoor gardens in, in the windows that are open to us during our short gardening season.
We had started up a new garden so there needed to be some soil prep before I did my first plantings. It is worth the effort to build your soil for healthy soil makes for healthy plants and in the end healthier people! I'm using activated biochar in this garden along with wood ash, well aged manure that comes up with clover (so it is like a double manure) and peat for moisture retention.
The other gardens I used compost along with the biochar but I didn't have enough compost for the new big garden.
Let's have a look and see what's growing...
Bruno Under Arch at Entrance to Our Yard
We made those rhubarb cement stepping stones using our rhubarb leaves as forms.
Indoors the only things left are my basil plants at different stages. I bring them in at night when it is cool and damp like it has been lately. We also have our cannabis plants growing indoors.
Bruno at Door Ready to Take Basil Plants Out
Out on the deck I have my container garden with lettuce, green onions, mini cucs, some cherry tomatoes for quick salad picking and for munching on. Plus my stevia plant for sweetening my teas. I have some zucchini plants in containers but they will be moved off the deck to a different part of the yard for they take up a lot of room.
Container Garden on Deck - Lettuce, Cucumbers, Cherry Tomatoes and Stevia Plant
Zucchini Plants in Bloom
In the small garden in front of the hoop house I have some more salad pickings in what I call my "greens" garden. I've got garlic chives, regular chives, different lettuces at different stages, arugula and kale. There is also Sweet Cicely, which is in bloom, along with some asparagus plants and my haskap bushes plus some flowers for color.
Greens Garden With Salad Pickings and a Few Flowers Thrown In
I finally got my new cover up on the hoop house. I had the old one on for quite a number of years and it was discoloring and not letting as much light in.
This is where I grow my hot weather plants like tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers with a few cooler weather plants in the shaded area. Those are green sprouting broccoli (this gives me an early crop of broccoli) and some celery plants.
I still need to do some mulching in this garden and finish up training the tomatoes and cucumbers up the supports.
Looking in Covered Garden at Tomato Bed With a Few Tomatoes Forming
Planting of Peppers With Cucumbers Being Trained Up the Back Wall
Now it is off to the new garden planted out front where there is better light. I use to have some garden beds there but the moles took out most everything I had planted there so I decided to just let the raspberries take over that area. Now that I want to get my land as productive as possible, adding to the food supply that we grow ourselves, I decided to give it another go. I'm trying different mole control things like planting caster beans, rue and I put up some metal pinwheels to vibrate the soil, something they don't like. I'm also looking into gopher windmills that I heard were effective. I planted a lot of plants from the brassica family here, purple and green cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli and kohlrabi. You won't see much of them for I have them under row cover to keep the cabbage butterfly off them and the flee beetles which were quite a problem this year. They took out most of my radishes and had damaged my cabbage seedlings which I had to replace.
View of New Garden Looking Past the Garlic to Row of Beans (not up yet) and Plants From Brassica Family Under Row Cover
In another garden area I have the peas which have come up and I have them mulched with straw to keep the moisture in and the weeds out!
Pea Patch Mulched With Straw
That's all I have for this month.
This is my entry to what use to be @simplymike 's Hive Community Garden Journal Challenge but which @riverflows has so kindly taken over to keep it happening. We love to see everyone's gardens growing all round the world so if you garden why not join in - details here
All photos were taken with my Canon PowerShot SX60 HS
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