Eating from the Garden

Eating from the Garden

Finally I am eating the fruits of my labor - literally - I have been eating the apples from my trees I planted only five months ago! This is actually the FIRST apple I ate on May 1st. The branch was bending dut to the wieght of three little apples so I picked one and at it. Notice it is smaller then the tennis ball! The apples are much bigger now and much better tasting.

There is no button that pops out of your apples or other fruits or veggies when they are ready to eat like on the butterball turkey. You just have to be adventuresome and pick one and taste it! If it's really bad toss it in the compost bin!

Here's my latest pride and joy - a 15 inch long Armenian cucumber! and boy is it tasty! The vines are covered with blossoms and little cukes the size of my pinky finger. I was warned not to plant too many of these! It is interesting how the different garden beds are actually performing. The cukes I planted in the back bed are not doing much at all. But the ones in front have really taken off!

Tomatoes are doing just OK - mine are mostly either cherry or grape tomatoes and there are lots of green ones. I picked a few of what I thought were red ones and they were not quite ready yet. I am trying to beat the birds to the ripe tomoatoes as I keep finding some on the ground all broken open.

I am kind of worried about the eggplants - lots of blooms - no eggplants yet. I have lots of bees and butterflies for pollinating so I am not sure what's up!

Pepper plants all look great and are filled with small peppers. I have red, green, yellow and a chocolate pepper (kind of brownish - an heirloom) - all sweet peppers. I loved roasted peppers and stuffed peppers so I will be sure to enjoy these.

My watermelon seeds sprouted right away and are grown like crazy - I should have watermelon by August!

Now all I have to do is keep all the plants happy over the summer. We have been blessed with temps under 100 and partyly cloudy skies lately so that is good for the plants I stroll through the garden daily checking for new veggies and seeing if they need water. The joy I get from discovering a new veggie ready to pick and eat totally outweighs the sweet and time it took to get the bed planted.

How is your garden doing? I would love to hear from you!

Happy Digging

The Garden Goddess, Doreen

www.down2earthgardens.com

Done Digging for Now!

Look - the garden beds are in! We did the final 5 hours of moving soil around – taking some out of the yard entirely (about 8 wheel barrows worth) and getting the beds shaped. This pic shows both planting areas – well there are really four planting areas.

At the top of the photo at the edge near the neighbors yard is a sunken bed the will help manage the water that runs off the north east corner of my roof. That water will help deep water the female Mulberry Tree (gives me berries in the spring) as well as the future mini apple orchard.

The bed below it is for the edible garden. I transplanted the salvia from the pots on the porch to create a perspective so my neighbors could see these are gardens, not mud pits!
I threw a mix of about 10 different kinds of flower and veggie seeds into the dirt which I had amended with really great organic mulch (from Ken Singh). Then I covered the seeds with more mulch and watered everything down really well with compost tea. The seeds have started to sprout (after about a week). I am really excited for them to turn into a riot of plants, all growing and blooming at different times.

Then this sunken ‘pit’ is to manage the water that runs off the porch roof (could be up to 200 gallons in a one inch rain!) and where I will plant a desert tree for shade for the house and the garden.



Now, I get to just sit back and water the beds and watch them for the next 30 days or so. Well, not really sit too much. I still have the brick edging to install and a brick patio, but I feel like the push is done to get the seeds into the ground so they could germinate.

I got it all done just 2 days before the Thanksgiving rain of ’08. It was great to see Mother Nature provide the water and then the sun.

This is not the end of my journey, just the beginning of new front yard adventures. I am already planning what to plant next spring!

Happy Digging,

Doreen Pollack
www.down2earthgardens.com