As the Garden Grows

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If you want to see my garden here’s a sneak peek

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Warning! My garden is very small. It’s jam packed with plants, but it’s small.

Here’s a view of the garden. I took this photo while standing with my back against the edge of the house. In other words I took it from near the base of the back stairs.

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As you can see I utilized every space available!

To the immediate right there’s a small storage area. Basically it’s a large grey wooden box that’s attached to the stairs. We keep our garbage containers in it. On top of that area I have several balcony planters where I grow everything from lettuce to tomatoes. I’ve also got my Jasmine or Camellia or whatever it is (see last post) in that area, as well as a Christmas cactus, ornamental pepper and a passion flower.

Immediately in front of the garbage storage area and our enclosed back porch is our small patio area. You can only see a portion of this area in the photo. We have a nice patio table that takes up most of the patio space. We’ve also got raised flower beds surrounding the patio. You can’t really see the central flower bed well in this photo but it’s behind the table.

So the patio table is surrounded by lovely plants. This gives the area the feel of being a separate garden room. Yes, I’m growing some tomatoes in pots on the patio. I’ve also got containers with cucumbers, green beans and tiny tom or cherry tomatoes growing on the other side of the table.

The rest of the garden is a mass of roses, lavender, balloon flowers, brown eyed susans, spring bulbs, hostas, lilies, daylilies and at least a hundred other types of perennial and annual plants.

Our neighbors house is behind ours. He actually lives on the adjoining street so his driveway is at the end of our garden. We also have very close neighbors on either side and can in fact see at least four of our neighbors backyards from our garden. I suppose that’s why I’ve tried to grow plants that are 3+ feet tall along the edges of the garden. It creates the illusion of privacy even if our yard is not the least bit private.

Oh yes I said the garden was small. It measures about 17 feet wide by 30 to 35 feet in length from the back of the house.

There. So now when I talk about my backyard garden you’ll have a good idea of what I’m talking about.

BTW if you click on any of my photos it will take you to my flickr account where you can click on the words “all sizes” above the photo to see a larger image if you want to see the photo in greater detail.






Do you put mulch on your garden beds?

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If you’ve been reading my garden stories you know I was a very very bad gardener this year. I didn’t complete my summer gardening tasks until last week! Those tasks included adding a three inch or so layer of shredded red cedar mulch to my garden beds.

Time and time again I’m amazed at what a difference mulching the garden came make. If you use an attractive mulch it makes your garden beds look nicer. I find it also makes your garden look tidier.

Other benefits of mulching include:

  1. It cuts down on weeds and the task of weeding since weed seeds can’t penetrate the thick mulch easily.
  2. Mulching helps hold the moisture in the soil so you don’t have to water as often.
  3. Mulch helps keep your plants roots cool.
  4. I find fewer animals digging in my garden beds when they have a good layer of mulch.
  5. Plants look healthier.
  6. It’s been said that red mulch placed around Tomato plants reflect certain light rays back at the plant and actually help make tomatoes grow better.
  7. The mulch eventually breaks down in the soil and adds nutrients for your plants.

Since putting mulch down we’ve only watered the garden twice and the plants look great. I did rain on Sunday though so you could say the gardens had three waterings. Prior to adding the mulch the plants were wilting in the hot summer heat within two days. The soil was just drying out too fast.

Now my plants were fairly healthy despite the lack of care I’ve given them this summer, but still, I can see an improvement in how they are withstanding the summer heat in the short time that the mulch has been down on the garden beds.

I’m not new to mulch. Ever since I put my garden beds in six years ago I’ve been putting mulch down on the garden beds by the end of each June. This is the first year that I did it so late and I won’t ever be late again. It really helps!

The sun is shining!

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Finally!

The week started off well, with perhaps our hottest day so far this year, but then it quickly went downhill beginning on Tuesday.

It’s been cold, rainy and kind of dreary most of this week. I’m not complaining because the plants in my garden sure did need that rain and as I’ve said in earlier posts this week the garden has been growing and blooming like crazy.

It’s just that the cold and drizzle haven’t done a thing for my spirits!

Finally, today it’s sunny out. It’s still on the cool side though. It was supposed to reach 18 Celsius which is about 64 F, but as far as I can tell the highest it’s gotten has been to 15 C. Oh well, that’s still warmer than much of the rest of the week.

The weekend looks like it’s going to be really nice. I’m hoping to get outside and finish up the “spring cleaning” of my garden. I still have bulbs to plant too! Remember last fall I bought a bunch of bulbs but didn’t feel well enough to plant them? Well, most of them survived the winter in our cool basement but I’ve got to get them in the ground!

Since I haven’t planted any seeds yet I’ll probably do a bit of that this weekend too. We might even go to a nursery and buy some veggies that have already been started – tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers just to catch up!

We’ll also buy some new cedar mulch to put on the garden beds to hold in moisture.

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