As we approach midsummer, I thought it was a good time to check in on the status of our gardens. We planted ours super late so I don’t expect to be harvesting for a while yet but I’m excited just to see things growing.
I’d love to hear what you’re growing this year, and how things are going for you, too!
A little about my garden
Our vegetable garden is a little plot in our backyard, fenced in by chicken wire, about six by twelve feet. So far the homemade fence is working well to keep the bunnies and rats away from our precious bounty.
We are also trying to revive a couple of citrus trees and a peach tree that were here when we moved in. The peach tree is about half dead, but has a good amount of fruit on the scraggly but alive portion.
Here’s what we’ve got growing so far:
- chives
- mint (2 kinds)
- basil
- tomatoes (2 kinds)
- jalapeños
- cucumbers
- corn
- strawberries
- pumpkins
- beans
- a mystery vine (maybe squash or cucumber)– a volunteer from our compost)
Today’s Q & A is simple:
What are you growing in your garden? Is it thriving? Just surviving? Have you harvested yet? Tell us all about it in the comments.
If you’d like to link up a photo on Instagram, just snap one of your garden and tag it with #SHmGardener. I’ll be posting mine there, too, as things develop, and I’ll be sure to keep you updated there on my mystery plant!
About Nicole
Mine is on the downhill slope. (http://trainsandtutus.com/how-does-your-garden-grow-july-edition/)
Time to plan for the fall garden!
This is our first year planting anything so we kept it super simple and just did potted herb. We have chives, mint, thyme, oregano and parsley. Everything is growing super well except the parsley (not sure why). We’ve harvested a few times and have enjoyed fresh herbs in our summer meals. We’ve been drying or freezing the extras. We’re also enjoying fresh tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers and summer squash out of some friend’s gardens. Yum!
Mine is my balcony and a shelf in the living room in front of the window. I’m growing tomatoes, strawberries and peppers in large pots on the balcony, and some garlic that started sprouting in my kitchen around the peppers.
The strawberries are doing well. I’ve eaten a small handful so far, and there’s more to come. We did have too much rain/not enough sun for awhile, so some of them rotted before they ripened
So far I’ve eaten just about as many as I had to throw out.
The tomato plants are growing like crazy, but no blossoms yet. Not sure about the garlic yet. The tops of a few cloves looked like they were dying so I went to pull them out, but they had huge, healthy looking roots, so I just left them. The peppers aren’t doing so well because they had most of their leaves chewed off by one of my cats (bad cat!).
Inside I have some herbs and I planted some green onions (the root ends of the ones from the store) and they have taken off like mad, and now I can’t use them fast enough to keep up.
One thing I like about the plants in pots on the balcony is that I can take them in when we have bad weather, thunderstorms, high wind, hail, tornado warnings.
This is my 2nd year doing Square Foot Gardening with “wicking beds” and I LOVE it! If your looking for easy, organic, high producing and low-labor gardening (after initial setup)…this is an excellent option! I have 76 square feet of attractive garden layout that I only have to water 2 times a week (not 2x day like my neighbors) in this 100 degree weather. We have already been harvesting lots of cukes, pickles, green beans, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, snap peas, carrots, strawberries and herbs to name a few. We also have tomatoes (almost ready) cauliflower, potatoes, cantalope, watermelon, corn, pumpkin, squash, peppers, sunflowers and more. We’re batteling crazy bad bugs this year like everyone else, but so far, we are winning organically.
We’ll be looking forward to doing a winter garden this year too.
We live in detached townhomes (garage in back, front porch/shared sidewalk in front, about 4 feet of space between our house and our neighbors on each side). Our neighbors to the left don’t mind if we use that 4 feet, so I have a table next to our front porch with pots of mint, basil, and a brand new tomato plant. I think I’m maxed out…maybe I could fit one little pot of chives or something? I can’t put the plants on the ground though, because javalinas and coyotes are into stuff all the time at night, and I’m pretty sure they’d get trampled.
I’ve been loving picking herbs though, and I hope that I actually get a tomato one of these days!
I had a ton of volunteer squash come up from my compost. We had at least 6 diffferent kinds of squash from our CSA last year so we have12 mystery squash plants and I gave away 15 more plants to neighbors. We will all have a good time see what gifts nature gives us.
I’ve got two 8′x4′ raised beds made with cinder blocks. I didn’t get as much planted as I wanted, but what I did plant is doing well! I’ve harvested a lot of snap peas (with more to harvest & blossoms still coming) and lettuce. I’ve also harvested some spinach, turnips & radishes. The kale is ready for harvest too! Cabbage & Brussels Sprouts seem to be doing so-so. Carrots are growing, I’m hoping for a good harvest from them. I was wanting to tomatoes & zucchini too, but never got them in. I might still try planting some starts!
I’ll also be doing a fall garden with more snap peas, carrots, spinach, lettuce …. and who knows what else! I live in Oregon where we can grow year-round with a cold frame, so I’m going to give that a try too! This is the best garden I’ve ever had and I LOVE it!
This is my first year gardening and I’m shocked by how well things are doing. I have a 10x20ft plot in our backyard that we double-dug to prep. It is surrounded by a rabbit/hardware cloth fences that I buried to keep out the bunnies and voles. After planting I mulched with wood chips from the chicken coop and that has seemed to help a lot. I have tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, green peppers, green beans (bush), cucumbers, watermelon, and pumpkin. Yes, it is a bit full. And also a separate raised bed w/strawberries. The berries aren’t really protected much, and something has been eating them. I’ve harvested broccoli, cucumbers, lettuce and green beans. Everything else is coming along. The peppers all look lovely until they’re about the size of a baseball, then they’ve been turning papery brown, then changing to black. I have no idea what’s going on, but I don’t think I’m going to end up with any peppers.
Any suggestions?
We’re really hoping for some rain here in Indiana. Our little homestead received absolutely no precipitation in all of June, and very, very little in May. It’s pretty amazing that with just once a week deep watering I’ve got anything growing.
Like some others, this is also our first year gardening. In the backyard we have some roma tomatoes thriving, then some other tomatoes, peppers, corn (only three plants…why didn’t I plant more?), eggplant and zucchini plugging along. The porch has some herbs and more tomatoes, but the tomatoes in pots seem to be rotting as they mature.
It’s so sad to pick a ripe one then turn it over and it’s all gone. No tomatoes have ripened in the garden yet.
The property came with apple and cherry trees. One cherry tree produced and we got several quarts of cherries from that, and at least one apple tree will have fruit. I planted peach trees, a huckleberry bush, two elderberry bushes and a raspberry vine, but only the peach trees and half an elderberry bush seem to be doing ok. The raspberry seems dead, as does one of the elderberries and most of the huckleberry. I wish I had neighbors with green thumbs who could come over and tell me what happened to kill all my plants! Hubby thinks I overwatered the elderberry and underwatered the huckleberry. I’m hoping the spring will bring new growth.
I started a new garden this year in a new house. The three 4′x4′ beds are my first experienced with raised gardening, and – after a long setback with an infestation of pincher bugs – things are starting to really thrive! We’ve only harvested the early items so far (radishes and peas), but I’m looking forward to the blooms that will bring fruit on my tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers and pumpkins. Even with the hot weather in CO this year, the garden is looking great!
My garden is actually doing really well this year — especially my tomatoes (I’m practically salivating over the homegrown tomatoes already even though they’re not here yet!). What is making me so excited about my garden this year is that I grew almost everything from seed, even my tomatoes and tomatillos! I used the winter-sow method of seed starting (I learned about it from a blog called “A Garden for the House” — you just use old milk jugs to make mini-greenhouses.) All of our seed-starting was done outside back in the early spring, well before our last frost date. I could go on and on — few things get me more excited than gardening, homegrown tomatoes, and saving money!
I’ve loved reading how everyone is doing with their gardens in various parts of the country. I’ve had a back raised bed, 7′X3′, which my husband and sons put in roughly ten years ago. It was tomatoed OUT, so he had a larger bed built in our front yard where we get the best sun. What an adventure it has been, exasperating at times for sure, but so much fun! My last two blog post have been summarizations of the summer plantings:
http://nourishingstrength.blogspot.com/2012/07/gardening-update-1.html
http://nourishingstrength.blogspot.com/2012/07/gardening-update-2.html
I’ve recently gone in and pulled out most of the borage and a zucchini plant as they have petered out on me. Planted some beets in one spot.
In the old back bed I planted a yellow tomato plant after a cherry volunteer surfaced to say tomatoes can still have a go back there, yard long beans went in a few weeks back, and okra just the other day. It might be too late for the okra, but I thought I’d give it a go.
Happy stretching and growing ya’ll! A garden will do that to you. ;D
This is our first year gardening at this house. We’re trying to grow tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, broccoli, some herbs, edible flowers and watermelon. The watermelon seems to be doing great. We’ve had lots of flowers on our tomato and tomatillos but not much fruit (though what green tomatoes have grown have stayed green, grrr). We have a bunny that frequents our garden so between him and our chickens and duck we’re lucky to get anything!! Putting up DIY fencing made from recycled pallets for the fall garden.
We live in a detatched house with a goodly amount of yard, and our garden is a working progress of five years or so. We started in pots, and then went into the ground, and now have raised garden beds. Our biggest issue is slugs and snails, which will devestate any seedlings I plant in the ground unprotected in a matter of hours (or as soon as your back is turned) but the raised beds seem to be working the best (that and a goodly amount of child and pet safe snail bait!!!)
Its winter here, and what veggies I have in the garden is an assortment of kale and cabbage, kohlrabi, beetroot, fennel, potatoes and onions, broad beans, collard and silverbeet, various chilli, mustard greens and mizuna, most of which are bearing, if somewhat slowly, and my herbs are parsley, mint, sage, oregano, and I have baby chives coming up
Even with all of this, though, most of them are quite small so we still have to buy from the shops
We have been gardening for about 5 years. We live in the woods which presents us with a set of challenges. We search each year for new bits of sunlight and plants that may grow in those conditions.
We have a small strawberry bed that produces enough berries to eat and some to freeze each spring. At this time, we have herbs in containers on our deck. We also have a bed of tomaotes and basil. There is a third bed that contains peppers, green beans, and thai basil. Our last bed is only in partial sun so we grow a variety of greens there and snap peas.
Our biggest pest this year has been earwigs. We were able to get them under control with small traps we made. They are simply plastic containers that have holes around the perimeter of the lid and molasses, soy sauce, and oil on the inside.
We are always looking to increase our yield so I am very intrigued by square foot gardening. We hope to convert our biggest, sunniest bed into square foot gardening plots in the next few years!
I’m a little late to this party, but our garden is doing amazingly well! After a dismal failure last year, where in a bunny ate everything down to nubs, we traded in our ground-level plot for raised beds and chicken wire and Voila…We’ve actually gotten to eat all of our lettuces ourselves!
We’re still waiting on things like tomatoes and squash (we live in PA), but in the mean time the garden has become a source of fun for the whole family, even our two year old! I would have never imagined it would feel like anything but work! I think I have a new hobby/passion…
I also wanted to note, that our food bank accepts surplus garden produce, so you fellow gardeners might want to check if yours does as well! They say the families on the receiving end consider it a real treat.
My garden is doing okay… I have tomatoes coming out of my ears, have harvested about 8 artichokes, two meals worth of green beans. My strawberries have been small but sweet and my onions turned out great. I had a couple of lettuces for a while but they died. The sugar snap peas didn’t make it and the green bell peppers turned out bitter. It was a fun try though!
I love hearing all of the veggies that people have growing. My 6 different squash plants have really taken off this past week, and my tomato plants finally have flowers. My potatoes just started flowering, and I can’t wait to take my 2YO out to dig them up. I see my first cucumber starting to grow, and can’t wait to eat it!
We planted a berry garden for the first time with gooseberries, currants, blueberries, and haskaps. I can’t wait to see what these haskaps are all about! This is the first year they have been available in Minnesota, and am looking forward to another juicy berry.
My husband gave me a greenhouse, so my gardening has gone up a notch. I’ve got lettuce, kale, one green bean bush, pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, several different types of herbs such as marjoram, basil, oregano and thyme. I have some lavender growing, but I don’t think it’s doing too well. I just transplanted some native ferns, lemongrass and a Texas sagebrush. And then a weeded like a fool.
I’m having the time of my life with my garden. Who knew?? Thanks for sharing your garden with us.
Even though we planted our tomatoes way back in April, we only just picked our first ripe one yesterday. Our peach blossoms came out too early and mostly froze, so I think we now have only 3 or 4 peaches growing. Your doing way better with your half-dead peach tree than us!
We’re just crossing our fingers we have more red tomatoes than green by the end of August before the first frost comes again. Good luck with yours!