Wishlist Wednesday: A garden that grows

Our raised bed garden adventure began a year ago.  You can check out its evolution and how we made the raised bed here, our giddiness at the first signs of prosperity,  and enjoying the fruits of our labor here and here. 

We've learned a lot of lessons last season, namely to water more frequently and in the mornings, build trellises sooner,  and plant more realistic vegetables that we can and will actually consume (remember my sole green bean harvest?)

So this year, B cleaned out the garden bed, added a few bags of organic cotton compost and we were ready to plant!

The garden bed always looks so neat and tidy in the beginning... 

This year, we've chosen cherry tomatoes 

(we figured this might give us a slight advantage 

over beating the squirrels to harvest first)

Seedless Japanese cucumbers and Persian cucumbers

(same seeds from last year)

And just to break it up a bit, I chose a Thai hot pepper 

(perfect to spice up Vietnamese spring rolls this summer)

 

And B chose a Habanero Pepper (on the far right)  

to spite the squirrels I think

DIY: Vegetable garden July update

While we were gone for 9 days on vacation, our garden saw lots of sun and rain which the cucumbers took full advantage of and began their march towards total domination.

Here's what the garden looked like when we got back:

Before we left, we made sure to harvest everything and give them to friends.  However when we got back, B went out and came back with...

15 cucumbers!

Unfortunately they were gigantic and too old with many seeds.  Here's a side by side comparison with a ball point pen.

I believe our garden adventures are about over for the season.  We've had some triumphs and some losses (mostly to those pesky squirrels).  We're thinking about what we might plant for the fall now and are planning in advance for next spring!

DIY: Vegetable garden - order has been restored

We finally put up trellises for the tomatoes and cucumber plants.  Now we have to train them to keep growing up, up, up, instead of all over the other plants in the garden bed!

And not only is it a space saver, but we are able to spot the fruits (ha!) of our labor more clearly now.

Cucumbers:

Tomatoes: