As usual, the plans for the garden have changed. I swear that I do a nice spreadsheet to refer back to, pictures to layout everything and then completely ignore it! Haha, I just get so excited when garden season comes around. On top of that, we usually have a bunch of other projects that are also happening at the same time, making everything a juggling act. I then feel panicked because I am not getting things done when I think they should be done, but in reality it is all getting done, just not necessarily on the schedule I set. Whew. Who knew hobbies could be so exhausting and stressful.

But man oh man is it worth it once everything is done. And we truly are nearing the end of the landscaping projects, so it will get easier to focus on the actual garden in the spring and not have to worry about any other projects. I look forward to those coming years.

So where are we at? Well ignoring the landscaping project of putting in a pool and eventually a floating deck at the bottom of the yard….we are mostly planted. AND, it is on par with planting dates from last year, so technically on-time.

That being said, we have been having some rainy, cooler weather, which is fantastic. However, it means that my peppers are still sitting in the house waiting to be planted.

It is warm enough to plant them outside, but I know they won’t be happy with the borderline acceptable nighttime temps, so I am going to wait until next week and put them out then. That will be the last thing that needs to be planted. Unless I can find a spot for some peanuts, then maybe I will have 2 things.

As noted in previous posts, one half of our garden was planted at the end of April. From the top, we have potatoes & onions, then on the lower bed, we have some of our permanent plants, rhubarb and strawberries. Beside the strawberries are our carrots and beets. The end of the bed is our garlic patch, which was planted in the fall. All are happy, healthy and growing strong.

Though I did notice that my beets were patchy, but I assume that is because either the seeds are from the company I will not longer buy from due to dud seeds, or that there is not enough water reaching them.

I am actually, surprisingly, leaning toward a water issue. When I planted a few more seeds today, I noticed that some of the soil was dry, which it shouldn’t be. Tomorrow morning, I am going to switch out the sprayer for that bed with a new one and see if that helps my issue.

All of those plants, if not already in the bed permanently, or planted in the fall, were put in by April 14. So they have had some time to grow and get big.

We have harvested a few strawberries, LOTS of rhubarb and some green onions. There are a lot of flowers on the strawberries, so I am sure we will be getting a nice little harvest of those soon enough.

On the other side of the yard, we have mostly plants that were started in the house and were waiting for the right weather and temperatures to make the move to the outside garden. Some of which, ended up outside more-so because they were needing to get out of their pots.

Between May 12 – 13, I got just about everything in the other half of the yard planted. We took the fabric off and turned all the soil, adding in a bit of new soil where needed, on May 12. We then started planting and finished off the last few items on the 13th.

At the top we have the tomatoes, which all got a brand new bed with some mulch to help with the drought conditions we are expecting. They are standing tall and strong, but the leaves are looking a tad rough from a few storms we have had rolling through lately. They will bounce back no problem, they just need a few hot days with some nice sunshine.

Beside them we have cucumbers, which just started sprouting on May 20. those will grow down the bed, and meet up with our pepper patch. I realized I only made space for 4 pepper plants, and have 8 to go in the ground, so I will be adjusting and adding more peppers further down.

Past the first set of peppers will be the butternut squash, which has not made an appearance yet, so some extra seeds were put in today, just in case. They will vine down the bed, around the other 4 pepper plants that I need to put in, to where the zucchini will be living.

The zucchini, which is also not showing yet, so another few seeds have been planted, will cap the end of the bed.

In the bottom bed, the cabbage is in the end closest to the middle of the yard. There are 4 red and 4 green this year. So far the ants have not gone near that area, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that they stay away.

Next to the cabbage is the celery and leeks.

Past the celery and leeks is a bit of an open space for the watermelon & cantaloupe to spread out and grow. I did 3 of each, with the first cantaloupe poking through today. Looking at past germination days, they seem a bit behind, so I plugged a few more in of each. I would rather have too many than none.

Another bit of space for our next plant to spread, we have 2 ground cherry plants in next. I am going to do these for another year because I like the jelly that I make from them, but also because I did experiment nearly enough with other recipes. I want to try out a few more this year to see if ground cherries will stay in the garden moving forward, or if I will use their space for other things in the future. They do take up a bit of the bed.

Next to the ground cherries is the cabbage and broccoli. I have unfortunately lost one cabbage, but the others look nice and healthy as do the broccoli. I also have 3 more cauliflower, and 4 more broccoli inside the house as a second planting that I did about a month after the first ones. Those will also go outside next week.

Moving up to the patio area, in the new large planter, I have cilantro, iceberg lettuce, pak choi, kale and romaine.

The pak choi is almost done, and I don’t think I will plant more. We don’t eat it enough to make it worthwhile to grow. I would rather plug in more kale, which is what I have done as I have harvested the pak choi. Lettuce and kale are just far to expensive in the stores, and we eat a lot of salads in the summer, so I want an abundance of it. Hopefully so much that we are giving some of it away!

The herbs are also looking good, with the exception of the basil. It is a little rough right now, but I think it will bounce back. It just got to big and leggy in the house, and should have been planted outside a month ago, but it was still too cold. Lesson learned for my overzealous planting self for next year.

Last, but certainly not least, the driveway strawberries are in their glory. They have been flowering like crazy and today I got our first big harvest from the plants. I would say there is the same amount of strawberries again on the plant still, that need just a few more days to be fully red. They are tasty little natural candies. So flavourful.

Now we wait as things grow and thrive. I am looking forward to many harvests in the future, and hopefully another year of sharing the garden goodies with neighbours, family and friends.