Garden is IN

Saturday morning I finally got to put my garden in! (With a little help. Thanks Dad!) It's a plot in an area that was formerly just weeds and tall grass, but the condo association removed all that recently and put in grass seed (which I am very skeptical of working, since they didn't put any hay/protection on it, nor have watered it at all, as far as I've seen–the birds seem to like it though). Lucky me, it's all very rich loam-y soil, which I amended with a 5-10-5 fertilizer, although I've got some miracle grow up my sleeve too.

The temperatures have–and will be–pretty mild, averaging around 40 overnight. It may look pretty barren right now, but there's a lot buried under the soil (or just too tiny to see)~! Here's a view looking down from the second floor of my apartment.

Here's a bit of a close up. Right now I've got the tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers protected in little semi-translucent shelters. They'll grow up and out in no time, and then I'll have to get them fashioned with cages and trellises.

I also have several marigolds tossed in among the plants. They help keep all sorts of little buggers out, plus they look pretty. Double win!

Since I can reach most of my plants from the edge, I only really needed one path–you can see it there in the corner of the picture. I suppose rows are more traditional and all, but what can I say? I'm a rebel.


And, just to prove there ARE plants in those plastic things, here's a close-up of a pepper plant.







There are a couple places where there's still some room to put things in. I have some cherry tomato plants growing inside, since they're still a bit too small to plant out yet. They won't quite fill out the space though, so I'll have to think of one other thing I might like in there. Melon? Broccoli? More lettuce? Hm... so many choices!

The other exciting thing I discovered are some wild blackberry bushes growing just behind my garden, between our yard and the neighbor's. The tallest cane was well over 8 feet tall, probably closer to 9 or 10 feet.


I read that canes should be trimmed back to around 4 feet to encourage lateral growth (not to mention more berries, and that's the important thing). So I went out and clipped off the tops of the highest canes today.


I have more pictures on my camera, so expect another post on blackberries in the future!