It seems like just last week that the garden was a barren patch of dirt and that it would never start to feed us. My how things can change quickly! Pretty much everything is in, even if not up yet. We’re waiting on the pumpkin, squash, cucumbers and pole beans to appear. Plus the second rounds of lettuce, bush beans, radish and carrots.

Mike made me laugh last night when he commented that the garden “wasn’t really that big…” But oh yes it is. I can easily see how and why you would make it bigger, but right now I think it’s the perfect size for us. Now hopefully we can keep it all growing and producing for the summer.

I’ve been spending an hour or so out there most nights after work - mostly puttering and just enjoying the smell of hardworking dirt. Today I spent almost 8 hours in the garden getting up the rest of the pea trellis, the lowest rungs of the cucumber trellis, putting in peppers, seeding the pole beans and scallions and the next rounds of carrots and radishes. I hilled up the potatoes and weeded the onions. I put in the last of the broccoli starts and all of the Brussels sprouts - both got a bit overwatered in their flats, hopefully they’ll dry out and recover now that they’re in the ground. Here are some photos to update you on what’s happening.

The whole garden, looking toward the neighbor’s house.

Row 1 - The peppers (6) went in today at the end, the rest of it is leeks and onions.

Row 2 - The tomatillos (4) and 2 more peppers joined the 26 tomatoes.

Row 3 - The radishes are going strong. They’re joined by carrots, scallions, 3 rows of snow / snap peas and 12 cucumber hills.

The carrots seem to be off to a slow start, not sure why.

The snow / snap peas are almost ready to start climbing. Not bad for such a late start.

The cucumbers are just starting to peek their heads up in their snug hills.

Row 4 - the lettuce is finally starting to get traction, and I seem to have stopped killing it. The rest of the row is spinach, shelling peas, pole beans, sweet corn and squash. The pole beans and squash are not up yet and the first set of spinach had a lousy germination rate.

The shelling peas just starting to reach for their trellis.

I ended up putting in 6 sweet corn starts just for Mike. Since I bought the starts after I’d put in the pole bean trellis, they’re in the same bed this year, but the beans have something else to climb. Since the squash are there too, I guess we do have the 3 sisters after all.

Row 5 - The broccoli is going strong. It’s sharing the row with cauliflower, bush beans and delicata squash.

The first of the bush beans (I just put another round in). They need to be thinned but I haven’t had time yet.

Row 6 - Can you see them? There are a whole lot of really tiny red cabbage and Brussels sprouts in this narrow 2′ row.

Rows 7 & 8 - Potatoes! Some are up and going strong, others are just getting started. They were planted almost 2 weeks apart, so the gap in progress is to be expected. This row is King Harry white potatoes - they got their first hilling today.

Row 9 - It’s kind of hard to see in amongst the weeds that need to be hoed and the dry dirt, but the asparagus is making real progress. I’m pretty sure we won’t be eating any this year, but if we keep it well composted and watered hopefully we will next year!