I pulled out all the bolting lettuces and weeded four vegetable beds, which included mountains of chickweed. While I was doing that, husband Kurt was doing our taxes (yippee!) Later he came out and mixed up our compost and amended two of the newly empty beds for me to plant tomatoes (Old German, Arkansas Traveller, Valley Girl, Sun Gold), a tomatillo, basils (sweet, cinnamon, red rubin), and sweet banana peppers.
I left the monster parsley bush and oregano patch for now because both still have plenty of good stuff to offer. I also left the flowering broccoli and kale for now. I've still got some Juliet tomatoes in a big pot and six more sweet basils to plant somewhere, but they can all wait a week or two when I'm finally ready to pull out those bolting greens.
lettuce bed before
lettuce bed after, with new peppers, tomatillo, and tomatoes
old beet and carrot bed before
old beet and carrot bed during...
old beet and carrot bed during...
old beet and carrot bed after, before planting new basil
old beet and carrot bed after, with new basil: look how big the potato plants are now (far left)!
three kinds of basil
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12 comments:
Looks great - that was a lot of work!
So lovely - what a promising garden view you've shared here. Clearly you both have the greenest of thumbs and will soon have more lovely produce to trade for those sore muscles! You two make a wonderful gardening team!
Sounds like a super productive weekend! I leave bolting parsley as larval food for swallowtail butterflies. And the oregano is a wonderful perennial. Just keep clipping it and you'll have it forever.
k--Thank you. It really was a lot of work, but I feel SO much better now that it's done.
Deb--Thank you, too! You're right, we make a good gardening team and I'm grateful for that. He's the compost-soil mixer meister and I pretty much take over from there.
Linda--Super productive is right! Thanks for the bolting parsley and oregano info. I think we're going to transplant some of that oregano to the front yard because we don't need such a big plot of it in the vegetable garden. And I'll keep clipping it!
Yea! You deserve a vacation. And a most-gorgeous vegetable garden award.
I keep parsley & oregano year-round. The parsley bolts sometime in summer but it's such a butterfly draw I leave it.
What do you do with all that basil? I can't use up one big pot.
The chickweed is the sprawling legume? We have that too but I haven't know what it is.
Kathleen--Thank you! It does look pretty at the moment, I admit. Chickweed is the stuff in the foreground and right of the top photo. It's an edible cool weather weed and should go away once it gets hotter outside. We do use allot of basil for cooking/in salads and like to have lots left over to freeze in the fall.
I love veggie garden work.... so gratifying.
Iris, although it was a lot of work, it sounds like you and Kurt have devised a system for weed-pulling, compost sifting, bed prepping, and planting that really works. Go team! And congrats on your first potatoes!
Dirty Girl--It's hard work, but I agree: very satisfying!!
Renee--Thanks! I think we finally have figured out a good system. So excited about our first potatoes, too!
Your garden is lovely.
BEFORE and AfTER photos!! They are the B*E*S*T !!
I agree -- I love to see before and after pictures. You were busy! And the results are great.
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