We continue to toil away in the garden hoping to grow our as much food as we can to fill our plates and our cupboards. It was only a few weeks ago when I seriously thought all was lost in my poor city garden, as it genuinely looked like nothing would grow, then July came around and the garden started filling out as quickly as my pregnant belly. I mean it was only in June when the garden looked like it would be an absolute fail due to my poor soil quality and late starts on my seedlings, but somehow the gardening gods were smiling down on me and now the garden appears to be thriving. Sure, it isn't perfect, but we might just get a few dinners out of it and that is better than what I thought only a short while ago.
This Year's Tricks That Are Working
As described in my gardening plan a few months ago, there were a few lessons from last year I wanted to correct and a few new ideas that I gleaned from many a gardening books, that I read over the winter, that I wanted to try this summer . Here is the status of a few of these new tricks in this year's garden:
- Novella Carpenter's suggestion for companion planting works - I planted lettuce between my onions, and boom, the weeds have no where to hide. It has really been the best row so far because both the onions and lettuce plants popped up their green heads right away.
- Using the space on the edges of rows is where it is at - The edges are usually wasted space, but this year I read (somewhere on fb... I can't remember where) that you can plant some filler plants along the edges to keep out weeds and maximize your garden output, and low and behold, they were right (whoever they are.) I, of course, only planted a micro-green salad mix along the edges of one bed, but it looks so colourful and has kept some weeds at bay.
- The three sisters guild is legit - I planted the famous combination of corn, beans, and squash, in close quarters, as suggested by Toby Hemenway in Gaia's Garden, and they are like a little family getting closer every day. Sure the beans are growing faster than the corn, but I am sure they will all catch up with one another soon. They are all growing very well, and that is the best part.
- Giving tomatoes space makes for bigger plants - This year I spaced out the tomatoes so they wouldn't be as crowded as last year's blunder, and somehow that was all they needed. It is now early July and they are flowering with some baby tomatoes showing already. Sure, this may also be due to the heat, but I also think that the breathing room has helped.
- Using a trellis for your peas, isn't all that bad - The peas are growing tall, so they seem to like their new home at the front of the house, but they do take a little encouragement to get them to climb up the new trellis. But now that I have them all roped in and they are making their way up the trellis, they seem to be doing well. It is a bit hard to kill peas, so this one isn't a huge accomplishment, but I do think they will have a better season if their support structure doesn't collapse mid July like last year.
- Everyone likes to grow potatoes in a tire - Cam did his potatoes in the tire, as is his new tradition, and they are doing better than the other potatoes. I would call it a trick, but it is just the magic of growing things in a tire.
- Radishes still suck - this isn't a trick. It's more like an added bullet. Radishes hate my soil, front or back. It's just the way it is. The bugs like them, so I guess they were happy this year. Maybe they will fair better in Vavenby. If not, I don't really like radishes anyway.
I now have this renewed optimism from the small advances my new efforts have gleaned, and I will keep plugging away with other new fangled efforts to increase my veggie yield this year. Of course, there will be fails, blunders, and the usual suspects...
The Weeds
Well, there will always be weeds. I weeded the entire garden seven days ago and it looks like something out of a magazine with its tidy rows and dark brown dirt showing through. And then BAM, seven days later it is a weed-fest in there. So this week, project Weed-the-Garden recommences with one row being tackled each night. I could probably do more, but it's hot and I'm prengant, so one it is! And I shall repeat this process forever and ever, amen.
Slugs
They are still going to eat things in my garden. I haven't started slug war fare yet. Stay tuned on that one. It's always a fun game I like to lose. But for now, I am not too worried about their munching destruction.
Who doesn't love a potato in a tire?
What Next?
So onward and upward as the gardening season continues and the veggies grow. This summer may not reap be our biggest bounty yet, but you never know: I have a few more tricks up my sleeve I need to try out, like heaving mulching and some homemade plant fertilizer. And I will continue to read gardening books in between summer fiction and pregnancy books.
Oh, I should add that I took a tour of my neighbours' gardens in Vavenby last weekend and their vegetables are off the chain. Seriously, there is almost no comparison; huge corn, squash, beets, carrots, and more. It was so nice to see how abundant and beautiful it all looked. Yes, I was a wee bit jealous, but it also fills me with hope that one day our garden down there, will be just as fruitful. And I mean, you can't compare a plant hardiness zone of five with that of a three. The difference is apples and oranges. Literally. So there is basically gardening hope everywhere, be it in this year's garden, which is doing better than failing, or in the garden's to come, in Vavenby, when I hope to grow most of our food.
For now, I will be eating salads every night for dinner, and I couldn't ask for anything more.
