It's coming in!

I'm SO excited about our garden this year! I was probably a little overzealous with our seed-ordering, but I'm looking forward to seeing how things do and being even more organized for next year. Everything is in now, and I'm just maintaining, weeding as necessary (pretty often, with all the rain we've had!), thinning as the plants get big enough, and watching things grow. Here are some pictures from yesterday:

This is the little spot I had last year where I did tomatoes, basil and zucchini. This year there are 4 kinds of tomatoes (little mama - a roma, sweet 100 cherry, porterhouse beefsteak, and golden mama - a yellow roma that keeps its color when cooked), a row of basil (just starting to sprout + a big plant I got from the nursery), a row of New Zealand spinach and an empty spot right front for planting later in the season for fall greens. The cherry tomato already has one tiny tomato on it! I can't wait for more!!!

This is part of the long bed I spent so much time weeding and digging this spring! My cucumbers are in the back, they have been partially thinned (they need more thinning, but that's my least favorite part of gardening - I hate pulling out healthy seedlings!). In front of them is a row of green beans that just went in last week, so they haven't sprouted quite yet.

The other half of the long bed: a double row of snap peas in the back, carrots in the middle (that just started coming in this week, yay!) and a row of lettuce in the front (the lettuce has barely come in, so I'm not sure if it's going to grow or not... we'll see!).

This is part of the back garden that was a very weedy raspberry patch. You can see on the lefthand side I left a couple of healthier raspberry canes, but most I pulled out. There's still a big patch to the right of this plot. The front row is green beans that didn't come in particularly well (so I planted more up front to see if they do better). The second two rows each have 3 hills of butternut squash that mostly look pretty good right now. I'm really hoping these do well, as we love butternut squash around here (Clara especially)! In between the hills are a couple of asparagus plants a client gave Luke last week - I had to stick them in somewhere and didn't really have anywhere else to put them! I'll probably move them eventually, but this is their temporary home. :)

My raspberries look lovely this year and have LOTS of tiny green berries, so I'm hoping for a good harvest. I think all that weeding I did in the spring paid off!

Our four blueberry bushes also have a fair number of green berries on them, even though I didn't do anything for them this year. I need to be good about picking as they ripen this summer; last summer we lost a good number to birds and bugs. Frozen blueberries are one of Clara's favorite foods (thawed and mixed with oatmeal for breakfast) so I know she's going to love the fresh ones from our bushes. I can't wait to pick them with her!

I look at my yard in a completely different way now: "hmm, where could I put another garden bed?" "what would be a good spot for _____?" Two plants I really wish I had are rhubarb and strawberries. Maybe next year. Also next year I am going to plan ahead and start more things indoors to get a jump on our short growing season here. But for now I am keeping loving watch over my little seedlings and looking forward to harvesting all through late summer.

Oh, and I'm also keeping an eye out for an extra freezer to keep some of our harvest in! If you hear of one in the area, let me know! :)