On trend

Even after planting all the vegetables in the big garden and on the hugulkulture mound and putting some annuals in my flower beds, I couldn't resist the urge to do some more planting, so I combined two popular garden trends in one.

Wheelbarrow and potting soil bag planter

I planted flowers in the wheelbarrow last year but with my lax watering and the local wildlife digging around and chewing on the plants, they didn't do well.

I think the potting soil bag will help keep the soil from drying out so fast. I doubt anything can save the flowers from blue jays burying peanuts.

At least they'll be pretty for a few days.

Bean tower update

This post has nothing to do with beans. It's about the other way that my bean towers can be used.

This family of mourning doves thinks my bean towers are a great place to sit and watch the yard

Isn't that baby adorable?

First eats from the garden!

I ate all of the peas sitting on the patio Friday morning. They were delicious.

I could've been eating kale for awhile now, but I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to eat it. I planted it not even knowing if I like it. I think I'm first going to try kale chips and then I'll probably throw some in smoothies.

The radishes came off of the hugul garden. At the time I planted them, I wasn't even thinking of eating them. I just wanted something that would grow fast to help hold the soil down. They certainly grew fast. The mound is covered with a radish and lettuce forest.

I haven't eaten any of the lettuce. There are enough weeds mixed in that I'm not sure I'd want to try at this point. The squash is growing well, although it isn't spreading as fast as I expected.

The nasturtiums I planted on the north side of the mound are also coming along nicely.

So far, I'm happy with my hugul experiment.

Tomato rescue

I'm not sure yet if the rescue was actually a success, but I'm optimistic. Last year, I planted the tomatoes on the west side of the garden. This year, I moved most of them to the east side of the garden.

Looking northeast - June 8th

As you can see in this picture, my small composter sits against the fence on the east side. When I planted the tomatoes, one of them ended up directly behind the composter. At the time, I figured that missing the morning sun wouldn't be a big deal because the plant would get plenty of afternoon sun. I think I was wrong.

In this picture you can see the difference between the composter tomato and the plants on either side. Big difference. In fact, you can hardly see the poor tomato plant for the weeds and grass.

Last weekend, I relocated this plant to a different spot in the garden where nothing will block its sun.

It's now growing next to the basil. So far, it looks better, but it still hasn't taken off like the others. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to have another dud tomato plant. Only time will tell.

Future harvest

The cabbages are about softball size.

I think they're so pretty.

The cherry tomato plant has a few little fruits

I can see one baby pepper

and a lot of little pea pods.

Last but not least, this guy is doing well on the hugelkultur bed.

This is a Marina di Chioggia squash. I planted seeds on both ends of the mound, but the ones on the south end did not sprout. Three sprouted on the north end, but something chewed on the other two, so this is the sole survivor. So far, so good.

Ta daa!

I've been working on this project for awhile, and it's finally done.

What is it? If you ask D, he'll say I buried Thor, but the real answer is that this is my first attempt at hugelkultur.

I'm pretty stoked about it, so I'm going to explain what I did, but this absolutely should not be taken as any kind of instruction on how to do hugelkultur. I'm fairly certain that I did several things wrong because when it comes to things like this, I only read enough to get the basics, and then I completely wing it from there. If you want to learn more about hugelkultur, and the right way to do it, the place to look is permies.com.

I had stumbled onto some articles about hugelkultur recently and got really excited when I realized I had a tree that needed trimming. One day in April, a tree guy cut several large branches off a linden tree in my front yard. He thought I was crazy when I told him I wanted him to leave all the branches in the yard and just cut the biggest ones into shorter pieces, but he did it anyway. I started with this:

April 11th

On the first day, I cut down all the pieces, and arranged them by size.

Then I hauled them all into my back yard. I know the neighbors thought I was crazy. Next, I starting laying out the largest pieces, trying to figure out how big I could make the structure.

April 12th

I settled on roughly four feet by ten feet. Then I started digging out the sod.

All of the sod went into a wheelbarrow, and I started piling the biggest pieces of wood.

April 19th

I started adding the small branches and also laid some of the sod upside down on the pile.

The next weekend, I finished laying all of the dug-out sod on top of the branches.

May 26th

Then I bought several bags of top soil and poured it into the cracks, in an attempt to fill the spaces in between the branches.

This was a very dirty task.

After that, it sat for a few weeks. I didn't want to finish it off too early, because I wanted to be able to put seeds on it right away. I also didn't want it to get rained on as soon as I finished.

The final touch was several more bags of top soil poured over the top.

May 17th

I had decided I was going to try to grow the squash seeds that Seed Savers Exchange gifted me with, but they won't grow fast enough to cover the mound, so I also scattered lettuce and radish seeds all over it. Then I covered it with straw to hopefully help hold everything in place in the rain.

It didn't take long for the seeds to sprout.

May 21st

So that's the beginning of my first hugelkultur. I'll let you know how it develops and what I learn along the way.

Looking good

The garden June 1st

I spend a lot of time just staring at the garden now, because there's so much growing in there! In the picture you can see lots of bare space, but I like to focus on all of the green stuff.

Beets

Kale

Carrots

Onions

Pepper and broccoli

Peas

Beans

More beans

Strawberries

All of the beans I planted on Monday have sprouted. The peas are doing much better than last year. I might get more than a handful of peas this summer. I may have found evidence that someone is trying to chew their way into the strawberry bed. I'll have to keep my eyes on that. The strawberry plants seem to be doing well, and I am dutifully cutting off the flowers and runners as instructed. A couple flowers went unnoticed, and one plant has a few small berries on it now. Guess I'll get a preview of what's to come. We're getting a nice rain right now, so I won't even have to water tomorrow.