Dinner from the garden

Mmmm... nothing quite like fresh veggies from my own garden!

We had Green beans, green onion, swiss chard and beets sliced up. I layed them all out on a veggie grill basket and painted them with olive oil. Then I simply added salt and pepper and grilled em! Turned out delish! Even my husband enjoyed it! And he doesnt like beans, swiss chard OR beets! Then we also had rice and a salad of swiss chard, cucumber, dill and tomatoes from the garden!

Raised Garden:
I built this raised garden along the East side of my deck in the back yard, along with the help of my hubs and God. Here is what I used:

4 x 6 x 12 pressure treated wood from Home Depot
2 x 6 x 12 pressure treated lumber from Home Depot
Drill
Hamer
17 foot long nails
Screws
1/2" thick rebar

First we drilled holes through the 6" deep wood. Then we drove the rebar down through those holes into the ground to hold the 4x6s in place.

Then we used screws on the inside corners to hold the two pieces together. Next we layered the next level of wood on top and drilled holes to make the nails go in a little easier. After the holes were drilled, we drove the nails through, securing the second level to the bottom level, which is secured to the ground with rebar.

Then we did the same steps to add the third level. We will add the 2x6s on after I get my uncle to help me cut the edges at an angle to fit together and router the edge to be rounded. Ill post pictures again at that time. It will make for nice seating in the back yard as well as a nice seat while I weed the garden. :)

We will also stain it the same color as the deck when we redo the deck stain next summer or later this fall.

Job well done hubbie!

But lets save a little bit of the beer for this slug/snail trap k? haha!

Here is a drawing and cut list if anyone is interested, although your measurements and size of garden may be different that what we have done here.

Here is a tomato from one of my tomato plants. This plant is giving very yummy tasting, medium to small round tomatoes. :)

And here is a cucumber. I actually took this picture about a week ago but I still hoped to see more of these little guys by this time. I will wait and see how many I get by fall though!

Here is my lettuce in the potted container. They look very interesting and pretty on the deck.

See those sticks leaning up against the house? I planted some clematis that were on special at Home depot. $5 each. They should come in strong and beautiful next year.

A closer look. This one is hot pink.  As you can see, this one in starting to blossom again.

Here is a close up of the sign (same one as above)

This one is purple and I put it in the middle

And this one is a light pink. The foliage was mostly dead on this one so I stripped it back and it is already starting to grow again.

See the little vines starting again there?

I find my corn to be kind of comical. They are so short! haha! They arent getting enough sun in this location. Next year Ill plant them on the East garden of the deck.

Here are my beans. flast night I had a dream that I had a pretty arch in this corner of the yard. The beans climbed and covered it nicely. I think I may in fact do just that. :) It would look quite pretty in the corner which is currently boring, with nothing special going on. With the clematis climbing the wall and the bean arch, it could be quite attractive! We will see!

Here are some tomatoes in the west garden. They seem to be doing ok here! I wasnt expecting that! I thought it wouldnt be enough sun light.

mmm tomatoes...

And here is some parsley! Yay! One of my favourites I have grown this year, next to my lettuce and Swiss Chard!

And here is the tomato plant in west garden of the deck under the ash. its ok. not wonderful though.

My Beets are getting ready to pick. I picked a few today and they are good. The only thing I dont like is there is something happening to the beet leaves. I am learning as I go here but I want to get rid of this problem before it gets worse. :S

Here is a closer look at the beet leaves

And here is a look at the whole patch

This is what the beets look like in the west garden. As you can see, they are a far cry from the ones in the south garden. So small. Not enough sun here for beets I guess. I will not put beets in this garden next year.

And here are the beets I tried in the garden along the west of the deck, under the ash tree. Again, very small. I wont plant beets here either next year.

Here is the mint I planted to help with pests in the middle of my garden, close to the radishes.

To avoid worms in your radishes, put wood ashes in the rows just before planting them. I have used that method and it works.

I want to try something different with another of section of radishes I want to plant here in the next day or two.

My radishes bolted but they also didnt form a sizeable bulb or if they did, they had kind of like a worm section eaten out.

So I am going to go down to the greenhouse or home depot or something and ask what is available to avoid this problem. I was reading on some blogs and one lady used sluggo and says that it worked great. I dont think this was slugs though. Another person said to use some stuff you mix into the soil that has tiny jagged egdes and it kills the worms. Another person said that doesnt work very well. Maybe they didnt use enough. Another person said to use a floating row cover. I dont want to get one of those. Another website mentioned planting mint close by because bugs dont like mint. I might try that. I will go talk to some people first before I decide and plant this section of radishes though.

Swiss Chard

Here is a shot of some of my swiss chard. I really dont understand why my husband doesnt like the flavour. Its a mystery to me. Mmmm... swiss chard fried with butter and salt... mmm...

Spinach that is bolting

I planted the other row of spinach today and pulled out the rest of those spinach that had bolted a while ago. I didnt find them to be too bitter but the leaves are so tiny and not lush and green. Might as well just start the row new.

Pepper plant. I dont think these will produce anything with our short growing season but its fun to try!!

Most of my radishes bolted and have become woody and tough. I pulled out the majority and replanted.

I also planted more spinach, lettuce and a few more pea plants the other day to have a new crop late summer/early fall. My lettuce did come back though, after the hail. More plants bolted through the week though. I think next year I will look for a bolt resistant variety of lettuce and spinach for the sunny parts of the yard and try something similar to the ones I planted this year in the shadier parts of my garden, like under my ash tree. Especially the Mesculin Spicy mix lettuce that I planted. They seem to be the least tolerant of the summer heat here.

I will also be mixing in a bunch of top soil with manure from the farm this fall and rotor till it in this fall.

Here are some of my peas growing. These are sugar peas with edible pod.

Here are some of my beets after the hail. 

swiss chard, carrots and peas with a little parsley.

Here is some lettuce. This area of the garden didn't have too much bolting.

Lettuce that i bought on clearance from Lowes one day last month. a 6 pack for $0.99

Here are two tomato plants. the one on the left I got from Ellerslie Greenhouse on clearance. The one on the right i started from seed early. When I transplanted the one I started from seed it died back a bit and then came back. It isn't the biggest plant but I still have hopes of yummy tomatoes from it! As you can see, the one from the greenhouse has tomatoes growing already. I believe it is a roma.

This is a shot of the garden under my ask tree, along the west side of the deck. It is shaded a lot of the day and hasn't been thriving. I have carrots, beets, garlic chives and mint in the top left corner. I also had spinach here. It mostly bolted though and was spindly and not very lush. I pulled them and replanted. We will see how it goes.
This mint I got from a greenhouse too. I am not sure if it will come back next year or not. I was told that herbs do quite well in the shade. I might plant an herb garden here instead next summer. With a few lettuce and we will see how it goes.

Here is another shot of my west garden. The corn is taking its sweet time coming up and then growing. A few plants came up but not what I was expecting. I think maybe it needs more sun. The parsley seems to be doing good over here and the tomatoes too. This side is mostly shaded from wind but still gets a good amount of sun. The beets are coming up slower. I will also add to this garden and till it in the fall and hopefully it is more productive next year although it isn't bad this year.

Tomatoes

Here is the mescaline. It really is quite spicy! I thinned it out so much by pulling out all the plants that bolted.

Parsley

Mint

Our new Romeo Cherry tree. The cherries are all gone. My son ate them all! haha!

Here is the new garden we tilled. I planted potatoes here and that should break up the soil more too. I will make this into a raised garden with a bench seat along the edge. 

Potato plant coming up. I planted late in the season and I mostly planted them to help break up the soil in the new garden but I still hope to get some baby potatoes to eat this summer/fall. :D mmm I love fresh garden potatoes! 

Basil. I will take this in the house this fall and keep them in a pot over the winter. I don't know how well they will do inside but we will try! :)

Oregano. I will take this inside too this winter. Hopefully it survives!

And this I don't know what it is... It is growing in the herb container but I don't know if its a weed or what. I planted a bunch of other seeds that didn't come up and then like a month later these grew. anyone know what they are?