What's growing on.....

A quick garden update.......

These hardy kiwi vines are chugging along. This year I want to start feeding them extra. I am hoping they will flower next year. Of course the raspberries are coming along fine. Did you notice something missing.... here let me give you a closer hint.....

Now can you tell what missing? This is my blueberry bed.... or was my blueberry bed. Any guesses as to where they went.... 

Yes this right here is the culprit... TRIXY. I really was annoyed because it was a really nice collection of 6 blueberry bushes. Oh well.... I think its a sign that I just need to give up on blueberries for now. I was having a hard time keeping the birds away from them.  I plan on moving a grape vine there and building a nice trellis.

 This is my first square foot garden... right now it just has a square of cilanto and parsley but most of the squares are at least seeded.  I have planted cucumber seed along the back row and will trellis it up. Then various other herbs in the middle and a pumpkin and cantelope in the front corner. (I'll let those vine out into the pathways.

 My second square foot garden has my chillis and eggplant in it. The floating row cover serves two purposes: 1) to keep the eggplant and chillis warm on cooler/windy May days/nights and 2) I have been hardening off my seedlings here.

 

I also have my tomatoes planted out and covered against the cooler weather as well.  I started my tomatoe seeds on time in March but I was late to planting them up in April. So they aren't as big as they usually are but these two cherry tomatoes (black cherry and sungold) really took off when I planted them outside.

I don't really show this part of my garden much, it gets a lot of shade. These are my perennial shade tolerant herbs. I have a English Thyme that is now three years old; a chive, sage and oregano which have to be 6 years old (some of my first garden plants); and a mint plant which I thought I contained by planting the pot in the ground but it seems to be creeping out.. so I should probably weed these before they become invasive. 

My strawberries....... this is another one I was getting tired of... I had one good year of strawberries but very few plants, the following year I had a large number of plants but the deer ate them, last year I moved them into the fenced garden but the birds ate them. So this week I really need to get the bird netting out and cover these guys before they fully ripen. 

My onions... these are also very behind... usually I have these planted out in Mid April but once again I totally missed this one as well. We went to Disney world at the beginning of April and it really threw my whole planting schedule off. Oh well it just means they will be a little late.

I started this lemon balm from seed last year and just left as is during the winter.... they were some of the first things to pop back up this spring. 

My garlic patch.... it always make me happy to look at my garlic plants this time of year!! I usually don't grow my onions or garlic inside my fenced garden, but for the sake of crop rotation and healthy soil I am growing them in her this year. This particular spot gets a lot of late fall and early spring sunlight (because the sun is in a low angle in the sky) this has been great for my garlic.  

I know this looks like a wild mess. It is my Sunchokes growing along side my asparagus. I originally did this to try to prevent soil erosion (both apparently have good deep roots to hold the soil in sloping land). But I think the sunchokes are doing a good job on their own and my son likes to eat the fresh asparagus. So I will be moving the asparagus out of this spot. I probably should have done this before the sunchokes started sprouting, now I have to figure out if I can dig out the asparagus roots and not disrupt the sunchokes. I'll probably wait until fall now.