Last night I said to Liz, "Have we ever pulled vegetables out of the garden this late into the season?" This is the 3rd year of our garden, and during the previous 2 years, when the July heat came around, our garden died.
Admittedly, the first year we over watered like crazy. It was our first garden, we knew nothing about gardening, and basically drowned the plants. By late June/early July, our garden was over. Our second year we perfected the watering and were hoping our garden would bloom, but it died out just like the year before. So we had a new plan for year 3, take the garden to a new level, and give it more sun.
In the Spring, we took our garden and went from this (keep in mind it's the early Spring and there are no leaves or foilage of any kind):
to this:
We were hoping the absence of the tree and the abundance of sunlight would give our plants an extra boost and help them grow. Well the change has been tremendous. Here's a picture of what our garden looks like now. Previous years it was all dead, brown, and practically empty at this point, but this year it's out of control! (btw, it's about to storm so the picture is dark)
We have been pulling an amazing number of vegetables from the garden all Spring and Summer long. There was a time when we couldn't eat the squash and zucchini fast enough in May or June, we gave a bunch away. We are now getting too many tomatoes and soon will have too many green peppers. Previous years, things like watermelon had failed, but yesterday we harvested our first of what looks like 3 or 4 baby watermelons, we'll see how they are!
The other big difference is with our perennials, the 2 strawberry plants. Liz planted them in the first year and they had barely grown at all. We can tell, although they are buried by the tomatoes right now, that the strawberry plants have grown much bigger and we can't wait to see what it looks like in the Spring when we can harvest some!
What a difference a tree makes!?! Liz was insistent that the tree had to come down, but I was hesitant. I am too much of a nature lover and have this stupid way of thinking that everything, even inanimate objects, has feelings. It was tough for me to say goodbye to such a big old tree, but clearly it was a good decision in the end.
1 comments:
Whoa, that is CRAZY! Congrats on having such a prolific garden this year. It looks awesome!
By: Hillary on July 23, 2012 at 10:49 PM
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