In the Garden - June 2014

It's that time again!
Mr. G installed the rain barrel for me. In a previous life, it carried olive oil from Greece. One good rain fills it up and then I use it to fill my watering can. We've used it for 2 summers now and it makes a huge difference on our water bill.

On to the garden beds. So much green:


The garden's growing quick! Take a look at last month for comparison:

And that "cage" you may have noticed around one of the beds is a rabbit fence. Rabbits are adorable, and I love when they visit our yard to munch on clover, but they were eating the strawberry and cucumber leaves like crazy. So we had to do something. Thankfully the strawberries shrugged it off and a month later, they look like nothing happened:

The potatoes have definitely taken off! I watched a youtube video and found that I haven't been burying them quite enough so I have to go back out tonight and take care of that. 

Because squash have a way of taking over, I only planted 3 seeds. Two of them didn't make it, so I bought replacements from the garden center. Can you tell which is the one I grew from seed? 

The last time I planted carrots, only about a quarter of the seeds sprouted and no carrots grew. So I planted 40 this year . . and of course most of them sprouted. Thankfully we can easily eat 40 carrots if need be!

For the flower pot, we tried a seed mix meant to attract birds and butterflies (I planned a whole flowerbed for them last year, but never got around to the actual planting part). Not sure what flowers we'll get, but they appear to be off to a good start. 

So that's what I have going on around here. How's your garden doing?

Comments

  1. Gosh your garden beds are really coming on, and I love your water barrel! Great idea. :)

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    1. Everything is growing so fast! It seems to double in size every time I go out to check on things.

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  2. Great job! The garden's looking awesome. (And let me just say that I'm a twinge jealous over the rain barrel. It's been on my "let's get one of those" list for awhile, but other lists tend to trump that list, so...y'know.) Enjoy!

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    1. Thank you! I got the rain barrel through a special promotion at my dad's work and it has paid for itself. Thankfully I have someone else to install it for me, or it would still be on my to-buy list as well. ;)

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  3. Your garden looks so beautiful! I am so impressed with the rain barrells. DH and I were just talking yesterday about the cost of buying a tank system. Have never thought of unhooking a downpipe.

    Also love the idea of looking up growing advice on YouTube - I don't know why I've never done that!

    We have a cute little grey rabbit who visits us, too!

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    1. There are some much fancier rain barrels but keeping it simple has worked out fine for us.

      Yes, this was my first time learning to garden from youtube as well - and actually seeing someone bury their potato plants made so much more sense than the written directions that came with my seed potatoes. Hopefully it's not too late!

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  4. Amanda, looks like you have a green thumb :) what a great garden. Thank you for suggesting the blog with premade meal plans - genius! I never would have thought of that and it's so convenient!

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    1. Thanks Nancy! I'm so glad you like the meal plans :)

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  5. Happy to hear all is well in the garden!

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  6. I'm incredibly envious of your yard there, and those lovely garden beds you have going! I'd love to have a pet rabbit actually, so just seeing one in the garden would delight me (though I agree, I got cranky seeing birds picking at attempt two of herb growing!!)

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    1. I LOVE rabbits! A pet rabbit would be fun. They come to our yard most nights to nibble on the clover and thistles and Mr. G and I enjoy watching them run/hop around. Adorable! But - I had to draw the line when they started eating my (future) dinner! The rabbits we've seen since then don't seem to mind, they just find something else to eat.

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  7. Where do the rabbits come from? Are they wild or neighbours' pets?

    Your grass looks very soft! I can see the rabbits would like it.

    My garden is not too good. Needs more deforestation.

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    1. They're wild rabbits, from an open area behind and beside our house. The grass is nice and soft now - it'll get coarse later in the summer when we don't get as much rain. They also like to eat all the clover and thistles we have in the yard (you can see some behind the squash in their close up photo).

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  8. Yeah, your garden looks about a million times better than mine.

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    1. Maybe, but I don't have any exciting squabrocabbage like you will ;)

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  9. I can definitely tell which squash you grew from seed...the one on the right. Thanks for sharing! Our garden is looking a lot more full than it did last month too!

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    1. You're right, and the one from seed is still beating the other two! I love how quickly the garden grows - much more satisfying than the trees I've planted. :)

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  10. I am so jealous of your garden. We live in an apartment and while we have a fairly big balcony, it only gets northern exposure sun for a very small part of the day, so nothing grows particularly well. My spider plant has thrived, but none of the herbs have. I'm nervous to try actual vegetables (carrots or tomatoes would probably be what I start with) because I would feel so horrible for the plants if they didn't make it because of our lack of sunlight!

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    1. Oh, that's too bad. Mother Earth has a list of stuff that will do okay with three hours or so of sunlight (not sure if you even get that much).

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