I absolutely love gardening. Of all of the hobbies I have, it might be the one I love the most. There is something about having my hands in the dirt, something about growing something from seed (it still feels like magic), something about caring for and tending something and knowing that without your care it will die, that all just really grabs me. Gardening is so easy for me to want to do. I just gravitate towards it.
And there were some major successes this year! Our tomato boxes that Lily found for me started out a bit problematic because I didn’t water them for three days and I learned the hard way they must have water every single day (ideally even twice a day when it is very hot). By learning the hard way, I mean we probably had 50 otherwise beautiful tomatoes develop big yucky brown areas on the bottom. But, after that wave of ruined tomatoes passed, we are now in a season of incredibly delicious tomatoes of all shapes and sizes. Steak tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, yellow baby tomatoes, black and red cherry tomatoes. They are so so good. See the boxes below. I would recommend them to anyone:
You will also notice to the left of the tomatoes our flourishing nasturtium. These are edible flowers that go great in salads. The other flower pot has the fun flowers you see below. I love how they start and end as these little balls, but they pop open with so much energy when they bloom.
Now I will take you through our garden boxes row by row (read captions for details):
In the front is our herb box. You can see brilliant and big basil plants on the right. Honestly, I have no idea what that out-of-control thing is on the left, but I’m sure it is some type of herb. This was also our herb box last year, and over time we have planted in it thyme, cilantro, parsley, basil and probably other things. We mostly use the basil for our Caprese salads. In the back box, you have two lavender plants on the ends with two little pink flowering plants in the middle (I’m not sure what they are).In the front box, you have two beautiful winter squash plants producing beautiful gourdes, but you can’t see them because of all the nasturtium around it. In the back box, I originally planted something (I don’t remember what it was) that never sprouted, so at a loss for what else to do, I just put in a bunch of cucumber seeds. Now the cucumbers are growing like crazy and sprawling out of the box. They are delicious though!On the right you have brussel sprouts. The things I planted next to them didn’t sprout, so just for the heck of it, I threw in a bunch of sunflower seeds. Now the sunflowers are towering. My favorite sunflower has red pedals instead of yellow. It’s hard to see it in this picture. On the left is our strawberry patch. We thinned it early season and got excellent strawberries from it early season (maybe 30 or so), but then it just became a box of strawberry foliage. I have definitely not mastered strawberries yet!In the front box you have the evergiving Kale plants on the left. We keep eating them (they are so delicious!) and they keep producing more. We’ve had to wash them very well recently due to spider-like bugs on them in great quantities. Also in this box is chard, lettuce and arugula. The lettuce was bitter. The arugula was good I think, but I don’t think we’ve really used it, and I can’t wait for Lily to cook the chard to eat with the steak we are planning on Sunday. In the back is black and red cherry tomatoes. They are growing freely without a cage and they are turning out wonderfully. There are also a bunch of peppers, green, purple, and orange.Here are all the boxes togetherFor the garden plot on the West next to the fence, you have the following from left to right: -Sunflowers that bloomed and are now dying (you can barely see them on the left). -Cosmic purple and orange carrots and beets in the two boxes -Zuchini, squash (butternut), pumpkin and potentially honeydew (not sure if that is also a squash or if my honeydew actually grew haha), cucumbers, peas and beans (which quickly died), probably some other things and then the rows of corn. The corn actually turned out yummy this year! I think I just picked them way to late in previous years. I think if the hair on top of the husk turns dark, it probably means you are picking it too late and it wont be sweet anymore. Anyway, because I didn’t water consistently or fertilize consistently, I’m guessing that is why on average each corn stock only produced one good ear of corn and one gimpy or non-existent ear of corn. Still, it’s been so fun to actually enjoy corn from the garden this year!It’s hard to see, but on the right side of the West garden plot we have Zinnias, mint (tons and tons of mint, it’s so invasive) and some raspberry bushes that didn’t produce much at all this year.Here is a picture of what Lily and I did in our front yard this year. This plot makes me so happy. It used to be lawn with a circle of flowers. Now the whole plot has mulch and a bunch of different rocks and flowers. The rocks came from a quarry from the Utah West desert that my friend Josh took me to. Lily and Georgia did an amazing job picking out the plants. The black-eyed Suzannes (yellow ones on the left) have been growing like crazy. My favorite is the slivery-blue bushes. This has been so fun for us! I was skeptical that I would be in to planting flowers because they aren’t edible and therefore functional like vegetables and fruit, but Lily thought I would be into it, and she was dead on. I love this space.
