The New Veggie Garden
The date of the last frost came and went and I eagerly set out to plant this year’s vegetable garden. I will say the seedlings were ‘hardened’ for a couple of weeks, although theirexperience was to plant hardening like a welding torch is to a heating lamp.
They came out of the ordeal world-weary but with new found strength. As I was plantingthe tomatoes yesterday they looked out of scale next to their supports; it’s easy to forget that in the fullness of summer their luxuriant growth engulfs the poles and cages in an exuberance of leaves and stems.
I sort of followed the plan laid out at the beginning of the year: the tomatoes got better supports, soil and sunlight, the squashes and cucumbers got planted in hanging baskets and out of the walkway, I amended the soil for beans and herbs and spaced the plants appropriately. Future will tell.
The yield table will follow in a month or so when I get something to put in it, but we know it will feature tomatoes, carrots, peppers, hot peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, zucchini squashes and herbs.
The latter took on a more prominent role this year, not only the kitchen herbs like parsley, basil, chives, thyme and dill, but medicinals and aromatics too – calendula, lavender and Saint John’s wort.
Despite the fact that the kitchen garden didn’t grow in size (not considering the hanging baskets it is still around 20 square feet), I added some flowers to it this year, colorful nasturtiums sprinkled in the baskets among veggies to cheer them up, nasturtiums are edible flowers after all.
That’s it, now all I have to do is watch and wait. But grow already!
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