The Garden In June
I have four hundred square feet of garden space this year, which is the largest my garden has ever been. It's amazing.
The space is divided into four beds. These were meant to be mostly even, but we forgot the measuring tape on planting day so things ended up being a little big more loosey goosey than I originally intended.
The northern-most bed is dedicated to tomato plants, cucumbers, snap peas, a little melon called "Rich Sweetness 132" and runner beans.
I'm growing Amish Paste Tomatoes this year, which I'll make into salsa, sauce, and ketchup. Those are the only tomato-based products we use, so I hope to put up enough to last the year.
Everything else went in as seed at the beginning of last month (which was late for the peas, and cucumbers) but it all seems to be coming up for the most part. Except for the melons, I think I'll have to replant those.
The second bed is dedicated to winter squash. I have Table Queen Acorn Squash, Walham Butternut, and Sweetmeat. All of these plants came from the community garden spring plant sale in Salt Lake City. We'll be testing them for keeping qualities and taste over the winter. I also hope to hand pollinate a few fruits so that I can save the seed.
I'm also growing a few sunflowers and a spearmint plant in the same bed, I want to see how each plant behaves as a companion plant to the squash. I'm hoping that the mint will fill in some of the gaps on the ground, and thrive under the squash in our hot summers, and the sunflowers will rise above the squash and not be swamped. Both mint and sunflowers are good for beneficial insects.
The third bed was meant to be a herbal tea bed but we never did track down anything except for the mint. I had bought a couple interesting melon varieties to fill in space but the seedlings were smothered by the mulch during a particularly windy week. I'm thinking about planting some Rich Sweetness here as well.
I already have had my first harvest of mint leaves, which was made an awesome cup of tea.
The last bed is dedicated to a few varieties of potato, this dry bean, and this garden pea. There also happens to be a pepper and a zucchini tucked in along the southern edge because I ran out of room in the tomato bed. I planted to potatoes in-between the mulch in the dirt, because I had no real interest in digging trenches now or at harvest time. We'll see if it pans out. Everything in this bed seems to be coming up nicely.
I also have three potted plants at home.
One is another tomato, this one is a russian paste variety. The first planting of these died from no fault of their own, and the second planting wasn't big enough to go into the garden. I think I'll make salsa out of these tomatoes and then try again next year to compare it to Amish paste.
I also have this purple carrot in a pot (I couldn't get them to sprout in the garden). As well as a Rich Sweetness. Hopefully no matter what happens I'll get to try them.
Lessons Learned: This year I tucked a flower in where ever there seemed to be room in the garden. Only later did I realize that I now had no idea what was a weed and what wasn't. Next year I'll be more careful, I might even go so far as to put everything into rows.
Most important task: The tomatoes and the beans both need a trellis, I had a lead for free tomatoes stakes, but at this point I'm not sure that it will pan out.
