Garden Review

Well, it's not last year's Victory Garden, but our first garden at the new homestead is in the ground and thriving.

It's a new experience for me to have plenty of space for the vegetable garden; in the past I've had to creatively cram plants into tiny spaces with sometimes questionable amounts of sunlight.

But this year is different. The established garden area is roughly 20' x 12' in dimension, with room to grow. With all the craziness this spring with the move and we such we stuck to the established area this year and planted the following:

12 tomato plants (mix of paste, cherry and standards)
2 pepper plants
2 eggplants
2 zucchini (1 yellow, 1 green)
5 okra plants
4 cucumber mounds (2 picking, 2 regular)
1 cantaloupe
1 watermelon

I missed the window on cool-weather crops, so there's no lettuce, spinach, radishes or broccoli this summer. Hopefully I can have time to plant those for a fall harvest.

Additionally, I hijacked the flower bed in front of the house for herbs and planted the following:

4 basil
2 oregano
1 dill
1 cilantro
1 parsley
2 sage
2 mints (in pots)
6 lavender

Those of you who know me well will recognize what amazing self-restraint I'm showing by only planting four basil!

TMOTH planted a row of blackberry starts in early spring and we now have 10 that are thriving and will produce fruit this year. He's also planted roughly 60 sunflower seeds.

There are grand plans to convert the back half-acre to an organized, multi-plot garden area, but that is years in the future. In the meantime, I think we've have a nice start, especially when you add in the strawberries and mulberry tree!

--Rational Mama