Garden update: serious growth, first harvest

Welcome back to Sustainable Jackie!

Last week went well. We had 600 students, teachers, and parents at the park for World Environment Day on Friday. The mayor made an appearance, as did a giant earth ball, and a host of costumed characters (2 salmon, an octopus, the mud monster, a huge polar bear, and a raccoon). Saturday was Celebrating Wildflowers. The weather wasn't as warm as the previous week, but attendees learned a lot from our community partners. DIY shrinky dinks using recycled #6 plastic was a HUGE hit. To make your own, see instructions here.

Life is back to a more normal speed now that I'm through those events. Well, if working full-time, volunteering, blogging, gardening, planning a wedding, training for the Danskin, planning for grad school, and trying to have a life qualify as "normal."

Let's focus in on the garden. Things are going really well! I took some photos last week to show off our progress:

This is our lettuce bed. There are actually 4 plantings in view, with the oldest plants at the top of the photo and youngest at the bottom. At the top, you see kale on the left and butter lettuce on the right. There were some salad greens in the center, but it was cold when they were planted and they bolted (developed a flower, resulting in a bitter taste). We had to pull those out. You can't see it, but the newest planting was some replacement seeds in that area. They are already sprouting and looking great! Towards the center you will notice that the plants are in a different order, with salad greens on the left, butter lettuce in the center, and kale to the right. Nope, I didn't do that on purpose. I apparently planted the first seeds in a different order than I intended! Oh well.

We've started harvesting kale and butter lettuce, and they are DELICIOUS! I've never grown anything to eat before, but it really does make everything taste better. Dave and I like to eat a stilton-like salad of greens, dried cranberries, blue cheese, and walnuts with a balsamic dressing. That has worked extremely well with the butter lettuce - in fact, I think I'll be having some for lunch in a few. You might be thinking, "Kale?" It's kind of a scary vegetable if you aren't experienced with it. Stay tuned...fiance-with-the-mostest and I have come up with something we LOVE.

The best part? We can harvest a few leaves, as we want them, and return for more. We should have lettuce for most of the summer, and will plant more in the late summer (as temperatures cool), so a fall harvest.

Holy potato! No, this bed isn't infested - our potatoes are just INSANE. As potatoes grow, you mound soil on top of them. This creates more space for potatoes to grow. Believe it or not, I mounded 6 bags of topsoil onto these...I just can't mound any more! We should have a great crop. To the left, we have onions and garlic. We'll wait for the leaves to die back, and then harvest.

We have more potatoes and onions at our second plot (going there today - stay tuned). If all goes according to plan, we should be stocked up on potatoes and onions for the winter.

To the right of this photo you can see the corner of our broccoli, cauliflower, leek, and chive bed. They are coming along, but there isn't much to see just yet. Again, we'll have more broccoli from our other plot. Any takers?

The main portion of the picture shows a bed with zucchini, cucumber, more leeks, basil, and tomatoes. We actually grew our tomatoes (cherry and heirloom) from seed. That's not very common in Seattle, and I'm not entirely sure I would do it again. After giving these little guys a ton of TLC, it was really hard to transplant them out. We thought we would lose them in late April, but they've held on and now they are growing and happy. Hopefully they will catch up!

The zucchini on the other hand...they are growing like mad! We got them as starts from future-mother-in-law, and now they are starting to flower!


The basil has been interesting. They were pretty sad looking in the cold weather we had for a while, but seem to be happy now. A couple started to flower, but with basil you just pinch out any flowers to maintain the sweet flavor and encourage leafy growth.

Here's a general shot of the garden. We're so proud of these garden boxes. We completely replaced what was there. Fiance-with-the-mostest and future-father-in-law really stepped up in assembling these. We've been receiving a lot of compliments from our neighbors.

You can also see in this photo an area where I need to do some work - the peas and beans. On the day of this photo I put in the poles and string you can see, but those are just a temporary fix (sort of fix...). We really need to get some metal hoops to contain the plants and encourage them to grow up. With any luck, we'll get some sugar snap peas, snow peas, and bush beans from this bed! Some of the more recently planted seeds are starting to germinate, too.

At the very front of the plot we have a bed for flowers. Currently it looks very sad, with just the lonely lavender hown above (that I purchased after trying several times to grow lavender from seed and giving up). It is starting to flower - exciting!

We also have calla lily and Renior lily bulbs in this bed. I've been worried about them, but now it looks like the calla lilly is starting to push through. I also noticed a slight rise in the soil which makes we thinking the Renoir lily will break the surface soon.

I'm less hopefully for the poppies I planted on the front side of the bed. I haven't seen anything yet.
In front of that bed, we have two small containers with strawberry (shown here) and sweet peas. Our strawberries have tons of the flowers and are starting to produce berries! The big one you see here is really picking up color now.

We are really finding gardening rewarding. It definitely takes a lot of time and committment (I can't just go away and not water the plants?!?), but we are learning so much and enjoying the sun, smells, and tasty rewards.