July Update

Spaghetti squash, Black-Eyed Susan, Thai basil – from the communal flower bed

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been harvesting a lot of zucchini, kale, herbs and flowers. I even donated two zucchini to our new donation basket, which we attached outside the garden gate. Today, I harvested the first two cucumbers, which I intend to pickle. My tomatoes are all still green, and sadly, the bunnies keep eating the baby winter squash :(. The basil is thriving, I might make the first batches of pesto very soon. Everything is doing well, we have had a long heat wave and a few crazy thunderstorms, so the gardens are lush.

Cherry tomatoes from the communal flower bed.

Garden Plot Clean-Up

Garden plot after weeding and mulching

This morning, I spent a couple of hours weeding my plot and spreading salt marsh hay that I had left over from weeding the outside garden bed and fertilizing and mulching it earlier this morning. The outside bed is now pretty much all set until the fall, when I am hoping to get spring bulbs in the ground. I mulched that bed heavily, hoping to suppress the weeds. Fingers crossed.

Outside bed after weeding and mulching

My plot is now ready for summer. The zucchini are coming in, the first tomatoes are showing up on the vine, the leeks have recovered, the winter squash is spreading, and the garlic is almost ready for harvest.

First zucchino of the year
I am loving my calendula border. So many different flowers.

Communal Garden Bed Progress

Zinnias and daylilies

It has been about a month since we started planting the new communal garden bed outside of our community garden. The area was cleared in early May, the Southwest Corridor Park crew built the garden bed border, and we spread compost. Planting for this season is now pretty much completed. We mulched the left side of the bed (native perennials) and the blueberry bush (very accessible on the very right of the bed close to the path) with bark mulch and will now mulch the rest of the bed with hay. We fertilized once and will fertilize a second time in the next few days. The plants are coming along nicely, even though we had to relinquish some plants (mainly kale, but also Zinnias, marigolds and other flowers) to the resident rabbits.

The blueberries are starting to ripen
There will be lots of tomatoes
Daylily border at the fence
Shadier left side of the bed planted with mainly native perennials (New York aster, goldenrod, coreopsis, bluestar) but also dahlias, calendula, marigold, annual asters and creeping thyme.
Right side of the bed, more accessible for people as it is close to the walking path. Planted with a blueberry bush, lavender, sage and Black-eyed Susans as well as annuals: tomatoes, chard, squash, basil, hyssop, marigold and many dahlia, zinnias and daylilies.
Calendula (pot marigold)

Midsummer Plot

Left side of the plot: calendula, kale, Swiss chard, leeks, winter squash, tomatoes, basil, flowers

Today, I spent three hours weeding my plot. Way overdue. I kind of had neglected my plot a bit in the past few weeks as I was more focused on the communal bed outside of the garden. It was a cool (70F) and overcast day, a welcome break between the heatwave that ended yesterday and the upper 80s predicted for the next coming days. Perfect weeding weather. Things are coming along nicely with the hot weather and now with a few days of showers and thunderstorms. I had fertilized the tomatoes with banana peel water last week, and they seem to have doubled in height since.

Right side of the plot: garlic, beets, zucchini, Thai basil, cucumber, cucamelon, rhubarb, flowers
Swiss chard, still fenced in together with the kale to fend off the rabbits
Butternut squash
The holy vegetable garden trifecta: tomatoes, basil, marigold
Zucchini