Garden Updates

Before and After photos can really be fulfilling, can't they?  Case in point, my magic little garden.  

PS- I'm calling it magic now, even though there is technically nothing "magical" about it.  Unless you count changing a complete disaster waste-of-space into a beautiful area that produces organic food for your family magic.  I do.

Here's how the area looked when we moved in 14 months ago:

 Last year we were WAY to busy inside to get anything done out here, but my Super Dad did plant me a little garden.

 Which became this by the end of the summer.  Green but unruly.

This year I built some cedar garden beds, laid some mulch and when you last saw it the garden looked like this:

And here it is today:

Am I the only one that is geeked about this before and after? 

I'm so excited about these sugar snap peas growing up the wall with the help of some twine I put up.

And recently I added these guys:

 

These three beds hold squash, zucchini, sweet potatoes and cantaloupe, all vegetables that spread out and vine.  Since this garden is built on a big sand box, I have to pay for and haul back every inch of dirt in here, so I didn't want to waste money on dirt and cedar to have a big box that would be mostly vines.  These smaller boxes will provide plenty of black dirt and space for the plants to grow, but I can allow the vines of these plants to grow out onto the sandy areas around them.  That's called efficiency folks.

 

On the left side there you can see my 2 rhubarb plants, a pot with a cherry tomato plant in it (I ran out of room in my garden bed, but luckily cherry tomatoes do great in pots), and my 12 raspberry bushes that line this back wall.

Of course I'd love to spruce up the rest of this space with mulch so that it all looks pretty, but since I plan to expand with a few more garden beds next year, it doesn't make sense to lay down mulch now.  I've reached my gardening limit in 2012. 

Won't a couple more beds right here in this blank area look great?

 In the mean time the rest of the backyard is starting to look fantastic.  I'm so thankful for these gorgeous red lilies that pop up every year.  Bravo former home owner.  Bravo.

This nasty little upper deck bed is starting to look pretty nice now that I thinned out the weeds and you can actually see the flowers.

And here's where I left you with that Zennia cutting garden that I planted.  No flowers yet, but its coming along nicely:

  

About a month ago.

Today.

 I also planted a few herbs in the herb garden below.  They are just tiny and unimpressive right now, but I have big hopes for them.  While I intended this space to be just dirt like my other garden beds, I found that there were WAY to many weeds left over in this space, no matter how much tilling I did, so in the end I put down weed block and mulch so that these babies could stand a chance.  Fingers crossed.

That lavender plant is dominating the other herbs at this point. 

And those of you wondering about the asparagus bog I planted on the far side (not that you would be), here's how it looks today:

 It's a little crazy at this point, but that's why I planted it way over on this side of the garden.

So far so good.  I love heading up to the garden every day with Ryder to check on the progress of our vegetables.   We cut some of our first broccoli the other night and I thought Ry was going to die with excitement.  Anything that gets him this excited about vegetables is a win for me.

How about you guys?  Is anyone else planting a garden this year?  Do you have a patch of dirt, raised beds or pots?  It's been fun this year experimenting with all 3, and I'm sure I'll learn a lot from this first year.