After preparing the bed with new top soil and tilling it in with the native clay-loam, I planted three tomato plants, four pepper plants, oregano, sweet basil, a geranium, and a set of yellow onions. All the plants were bought at Lowe's for the sake of convenience. Next time I'll probably try to get local plants instead. The bed itself is a small area (probably 3x15) that receives a decent amount of sunlight. I put a short, plastic fence around the outside to prevent deer and other mammals from getting into the garden. To the same end, I've laid down quite a bit of dog hair (mainly Tex's) around the outside to make it smell even more heavily of dog than it already does out there. Sarah bought a bird feeder that I hung from the sweetgum tree in the front yard, which has helped keep the birds fed and away from my tomatoes. So far I haven't had any problems with anything getting into the garden.
Laying the blocks with Lucy's help:
The finished result:
Having read up on companion planting and square-foot gardening I decided to try to cram all of these into the bed. Turns out they've done fairly well, except for the onions which have died off for reasons I don't know. I didn't understand how large the tomato plants would actually grow, so I simply put small three-foot cages around them. At the time it looked as though everything would have enough room. Later I bought four-foot plastic stakes that I tied them to before abandoning those for six-foot wooden stakes arranged in a triangle and wrapped with gardening twine. These, too, have proven too small for my largest tomato plant. Next season I'm going to be smarter about my planting and give the tomatoes enough room to grow together without shading the plants among them so much. The basil and jalapeno that are between two of the tomato plants are doing quite well though the banana pepper in the back has the added difficulty of being shaded by the flower box on the window.
At the end of June:
The cayenne:
Basil and the banana peppers behind:
The Lemon Boy (I think):
The Sweet 100:
Sarah's unhappy that my tomatoes have grown in front of said box so next year I'll plant something shorter below it. I ended the garden just past that flower box at the point where the existing lamb's ear was growing. Sarah dug up and rearranged the Lamb's Ear to fill in the holes and then planted a bunch of flowers in front of it.
The flower/Lamb's Ear portion:
On the other side of the walkway she planted some petunias next to the daylillies and sage that was already here. I've been collecting bricks from the lot behind us that is the site of an old house. I'll make a post just about it soon, but I've used those bricks to edge in front of the front porch's flower bed.
The front porch et al.:
I've eaten from each of the tomato plants, lots of the basil, some of the oregano, and a few cayenne and jalapeños. Only the banana and bell pepper plants remain to be tested and I'm waiting until they produce more and bigger fruits. The Lemon Boy tomatoes have been okay, though I suppose I shouldn't have expected a lemony flavor from them. They have a mild flavor but are a bit mealy. I ate one for lunch today. The Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes are best when fully ripe, otherwise they don't have all that great of a flavor. The Early Girls are decent, medium-sized red tomatoes that have been growing in funny shapes because of how the fruit has been pushed together. The reason I chose these three varieties is because I wanted to have the fruit maturing in stages, since each plant is supposed to fruit about two weeks apart. Instead they all produced at the same time. The Early Girl has ripened all at once, too, so I'll have quite a few tomatoes to eat in a few days. That's fine by me, though, since I eat so many every day. I was hoping to have enough produce that I could donate some or make salsa but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. I didn't prune my tomato plants correctly so I have much more plant than fruit. Once winter arrives and everything dies out I'm going to till the plants into the soil and work on leveling out the blocks. I may build a composter on the side of the house, but I don't know how useful it would be. I've planted some banana peels in the garden this season every few weeks and I can only imagine they've helped. The garden itself is mostly organic. I say mostly because while I've only used organic top soil, organic catfish fertilizer (sparingly), and organic fungicide/insecticide (also sparingly) the plants were already growing when I bought them, I don't know what's in the native soil, and a few weeks after planting the pest control service came by and put pesticide around the whole exterior of the house, including on the back edge of the garden. I need to work on the soil structure, especially at the end where most of my onions were. I'm thinking they may have died out because of poor drainage and nutrition, since that end has some mulch buried down in it. I don't know. I used an old carpet tube to shunt the gutter's downspout to the edge of the garden thinking it would help with erosion, which it has. I need to do a better job irrigating next time. Anyway, all lessons learned for next season. Enjoy the pictures.
Today:
The Sweet 100 plant. Note - those stakes are ~5 feet tall:
The cayenne:
The jalapeños:
The Early Girl:
Looking west at the Early Girl, geranium, oregano, and cayenne:
The downspout (on the fence side of the pipe is my make-shift composting area where I place pruned tomato parts). Also note the failed onions on the left of the pipe:
The castlewall blocks:
The front porch again:
The flowers/Lamb's Ear again:
Part of today's harvest:
Some of the historic bricks:
