Gardening

I'm trying to do a bit better with my garden this year than last year.

Every year it gets a bit better, but the progress is slow.  I don't have that "knack" that some gardeners have for arranging plants in a bed.  My array of plants usually look like they were deposited there willy-nilly.

Unfortunately those darn asian beetles have come in swarms and destroyed most of my plants.  I am normally very much anti-pesticide, but the site of clumps of beetles feeding where my roses used to be pushed me over the edge into a beetle-induced pesticide rage.

I like plants, but I'm not really that educated about them as to where they thrive best and what sort of soil they like.  However, I'm trying to learn (although it's a slow, difficult process, ha ha!)

I found strawberry plants on sale for only a few cents a six-pack, so I decided to put them as an edgeing border between the back yard walkway and the garden. 

I actually took the time to read up on the conditions they like best, and I tried to mix up a soil combination that they'd like, with sand, regular soil (which is quite dark but heavy) and peat moss for acidity.

I think it worked because I only lost one plant!


This is a photo I took of our garden in July.  Now it looks like a jungle of five foot high tomato plants.  I always forget that tomato plants, when they do well, do really well up here.

Those tall cabbage things next to the regular cabbage are called brussel sprouts.  We love them, so no matter how many we freeze for the winter we never have quite enough.  Yum!

 

In the background you can see the grapes growing along the fence.  If the beetles don't eat them all first, we should have a very good crop this fall!