Here's a hodgepodge of pictures I've been meaning to share to show the progress of the garden this year. I wish I could say it's been neat and tidy, buuuuuut, well, you'll see...
I got my annuals all planted up in the ever-increasing number of pots (see them dwindle down as I potted and moved them around the yard)...
Most go on the deck and have had varying degrees of success. Marigolds are one of my new favorites; those have done spectacularly all summer! It's really a trial and error on what goes ok on the deck because it's fully full sun.
Dahlia bulbs don't overwinter well from what I've heard and from my two year's experience.
But there were a few that didn't look horribly maimed and diseased, so I planted them in one of the pots with a little annual and figured I could just pop in another annual if they didn't come up. They both did! And then I forgot to water them and they died! But then different shoots came back and now they're green and 15" tall and about to bloom again! I'm the best gardener ever!
Also the best photographer who hasn't taken any photos of the pots. Go me.
And what about the edibles?
Well, let me tell you; I started off the garden as it should - first thing in the spring with peas and lettuce.
First little row of peas!
One they got several inches high, I finally put up the stakes and twine. Now mind you, I wound twine 5-6' high last year and those measly peas got to be about 18" tall. What a waste of twine!
So I was conservative this year and put about 2 feet of twine up the stakes.
Yeaaaaahhhhh...
Once they surpassed that mark, I quickly wrapped more twine up higher.
Yeaaaaaahhhhh...
By the time I finished putting the twine to the top of the stakes, the plants had already grown bent over and twisted horribly around each other, so I just let them be and enjoyed peas which were neither abundant nor abundantly spectacular in size, but we got enough to be respectably proud of.
Meanwhile, my beans and lettuce did fabulous! We enjoyed many a meal with spinach and kale.
The beans typically didn't make it to a meal; we like them raw. A lot.
As the spring crops started petering off, time to focus on summer crops. The herbs in pots were already well on their way, I planted a nice better boy tomato and a hot pepper plant and I had a few extra zucchini and yellow squash seeds in the freezer, so since we eat a lot of squash, in the ground they went too!
And look - the seeds started coming up!!!
And not in the places I planted them...oh....wait.
As they continued in their growth (in the foreground below), it started to become clear that they were not all zucchini or yellow squash.
And yet again...
the seeds in the compost
with the candlestick
was thought to be the culprit.
As they continued in their growth, it started to became clear that NONE were zucchini or yellow squash.
If you're keeping track of squash - 4 seeds I planted: none
4 seeds compost planted: 4
Not including the Little Shop of Horrors butternut squash in the front yard and 2 more butternut squash growing in the back of this garden (not even joking ... see below).
I see you poking your not so little leaves out from under the rhododendron...
...and producing 6 more butternut squash...
So as you can see, it's one giant jungle of a mess.
One large tomato plant did well and we've gotten quite a few fresh tomatoes...before it doubled the size of it's tomato cage, clawed its way around all of my attempts to stake it and limped upside down on top of and over the side of the vacant potato barrel. Yet still those little balls grow! They've been green for awhile now, though, so that may be the end of that.
Fried green tomatoes!!
You can see the hot peppers are quite abundant (to the right of the tomato cage in the photo above, just behind another zombie squash vine). Red and green bell pepper plants I planted did terrible. As in, produced like 2 minuscule fruits that molded away. May have to re-think their location next year. And not let them become strangled by zombie vines (they were already too small and not doing well before the vines took over; don't judge).
Another tomato I planted later did not do so well (as in, at all) and so yet another rogue butternut squash mutant stowaway decided to climb the cage instead...and grow a squash (see it all cute and green and getting bigger by the day inside the tomato cage on the right?)
And what's that little round thing down there in the center of the photo? Oh, just a cantaloupe. Huh.
I did get out there this week and chop down the spent kale and gently redirect the vines so they had more space and sunlight. It's still a jungle, though.
Next year I think I may just clear the bed, spread compost and say, "have fun!"
Will probably be my best garden year ever.
In other news, the cannas look pretty on either side!
Oh and remember how I said that I'd done an experiment where I left some in the ground for this year and was curious how they did?
Go back to the top and scroll down through the photos again and you tell me?
See them along the stairs? I planted maybe 3-4 of those plus the few in the large pot next to the stairs. The rest just came up on their own - earlier and more abundantly than the ones I plant - and then they mutated themselves underground and grew more little friends which also came up and created a rather delightful, albeit overcrowded wall of flowers blocking our white trash assortment of tools and lawn equipment just laying out openly under the deck awaiting our building a little closet for it.
I need to thin them out for sure and will save some bulbs again since last winter was unseasonably warm, but my grossly unprofessional opinion is that canna bulbs do survive staying in the ground over winter in zone 7A. Yay! Less fall work!
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