Spring Garden 2010 Progress

Spring Garden 2010 Progress - Three Days Later 

Well, it seems I've really won the battle against the neighbor's cats. The weather is cooler than last week and seedlings have begun to sprout.

Here are the sugar snap peas getting ready to  make their climb.

The chives are really taking off and the broccoli seems to enjoy the transplant.

The sage plant is just beginning to have new growth and so I'm going to leave it here.

You can just barely see the tops of the onions coming up and some radishes on the far side. The radishes are now growing in the new arrangement provided by my neighbor's cats and will require more thinning than I usually have to do with the 'birthing sheets' used. Once I got past the shock of seeing everything in disarray and put up the chicken wire, it wasn't too bad and there will definitely be a harvest.

Spring Garden 2010 Progress - Eight Days Later

The sugar snap peas have just noticed the trellising available and, as soon as they've grown some climbing tendrils, they'll be soaring upward. You can just barely see the chard coming up next to them. Yummy.

Definitely starting to get that wonderful garden green look! The radishes have popped up on the middle left and the broccoli has added leaves. Onions are about 1-1/2 inches above ground. Gonna be a great year.

Cabbages and herbs waiting to go into their beds. Have built a totally new lasagna garden next to the craft shop for the herbs, and will just put the containers in the ground with their bottoms cut out. Will put the cabbages below the fall producing fruit trees as ground cover. The spring fruiting trees (cherry, apricot/almond, and peach) have strazzberries and strawberries at their base. Love to companion plant. 

Gardening in the 21st Century

I used to plant everything I possibly could -- whether my family enjoyed the foods, or not. It was the joy of gardening that hooked me and my neighbors got the surplus. Now that I'm a doddering old lady, I plant what I enjoy eating and, if I think I want something else, I'll hit the local farmer's market. The convenience of fresh salad veggies (from garden to tummy in under 1/2 hour!) keeps me planting.

With the great technical innovations of the past forty years, gardening really can be quite easy for everyone. Lasagna gardening for ground plantings, French intensive for the big container garden, and TopsyTurvy planters for confusing the bugs and getting luscious crops -- well, it's just a great time to be growing  your own. I hope you'll give it a try.