Monday Garden Club

So much going on in the garden this week, and outside the garden as well.  The cornfield in the background  has started to grow and pretty soon it will look like our property is completely surrounded by the corn.  Of all the field crops farmers plant around here, we love having corn neighbors for the summer.  I'm still shocked that such a giant plant can grow from one tiny seed.  Same with sunflowers that plant themselves all over the garden from last year's leftovers and grow like mad into a 10 foot tall stalk by the end of summer with big blooms and enough seeds to make all the neighborhood birds happy. So far, no ten foot tall plants here, just seedlings.

Seedlings and weeds.  Last week, Sheila asked about the weeds that had started to sprout up in the garden around the emerging plants.

"I see in your pics you have sprouts of what looks like grass in the cracks of the dirt. Tell me... do you just let this go? What do you do? This is my issue and I assumed I had to be grass free. But since you're the expert... do I have to get rid of every blade?"

I'd like to say otherwise, but yes, my garden does grow weeds as well, if not better than it grows veggies.  I wish there were a weed free way to garden, but short of making 20 or so raised beds and hauling in clean, weed free soil, we live with them.  The Gardener made the first pass with the rototiller last week (that's why our rows are so wide, to fit the tiller down without ripping out any plants) hence the squares of green in the vine garden where the zucchinis and other vines are growing along with the weeds, including grass.  Once the plants get a little bigger and more hardy, I will start pulling weeds by hand right around the plants.  We also plan to lay down giant sheets of cardboard topped with straw around all of the vine plants to keep the weeds under control in the most out of control area of the garden.  Last year, the vine garden became so weedy that we could hardly find the cantaloupes and winter squash. 

Onions

Broccoli

Bush Beans

Kohlrabi

Pole Beans and Sunflowers



Pear Tomato



Silvery Tomato- an early, determinate variety

Rhubarb

Strawberries

Raspberries

Above are the raspberries still in the big garden and below are the recently moved raspberry plants. 

Some are doing better than others, obviously, but in gardening, casualties happen.  Good thing more plants pop up out of the ground each spring.

We needed the ATV trailer for other uses, so the water tank had to find a new ride.  And of course, since we filled the water wagon, there has been more than enough rain to water everything.  Go figure.

Peaches!

And some nasty looking leaf curl on the peach tree.  I'll see my father-in-law today (a peach growing pro) and ask him what to do about it.

Apples!

Mulberries!

And finally, some flowers, all of which I started from tiny seeds in my basement last year. 

Lupines

Apricot Beauty Foxglove

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below with Mr. Linky.