Garden 2018 Update 2

Garden 2018 update 1

Well. It's *mostly* in.  I still have a couple empty spots to fill and a few things to transplant. But, hallelujah.  A month of working on it, it's mostly in.

Now, the weeds. Ugh. Weeds.  Can't see those from a distance, so here ya go:

 Hard to believe that this was field when we moved in 5 1/2 years ago.  There's our orchard, berries, herb beds, rhubarb, main garden.

And then on the other side of the barn, we are trying a brand new garden, hoping the squash bugs won't take it over as rapidly as they have in the other garden. Every year, the squash bugs ruin things before plants even have a chance. Thanks to my husband for helping with this.

A few happenings:

Potatoes still going strong from the seed potatoes I got 5 years ago.  Free potatoes year after year.

 Kale from seed.  Grew these under the growlights and transplanted.

 Cilantro I let self seed. We're eating cilantro in everything.

 I need to keep working on thinning my parsnips.  Look how tall these that I thinned are!  Hope to have one area of parsnips for this fall, the other for next spring.

 Last year, even with not watering at all, my pepper yield was double thanks to planting in black plastic. Peppers like hot weather, this helps keep those temps up. Also, I figured out a great way to grow peppers indoors.  I planted them in their starter pots and put the starter pot in a store bought plastic garden container. Closed the lid. It was like the peppers had a little greenhouse under teh growlights. Took less time to germinate that way.

 THis year we planted our tomatoes around feedbags.  Hopefully that will help with moisture retention, and of course the weeds.

 Last year we had an infant at this time and I pretty much didn't water at all.  This year I bought an automatic shut off, which is life changing.  I set the dial for how long I want it watered and then it shuts off automatically. Life changing!

The most food I have grown in this space was 800lbs. of produce.  Curious what this year's harvest will bring.