The Summer Garden

This year's garden is not as overgrown as it was in past years. We put down cloth along each pathway and have kept up with pulling or trimming the weeds. And we sure have been enjoying the harvests! So far, we've had peas, spinach, kale, Swiss chard, beets, artichokes, potatoes, onions, garlic, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, green beans, and more. There's been enough to eat now, preserve some, and share with family and friends.

Above, the short row of corn is growing well and we've got several winter squash varieties, which you can see below. Sadly, though, there is still a vole or two running amok, digging holes, chopping down pea plants, and even slicing through a winter squash vine in several places, which caused the whole thing to die. I planted a lot of extra seeds this year to ensure that I would have food to enjoy from the garden, even if a vole or two did some damage. The vole situation improved drastically from last year, but it may be a year or two more before we can resolve the issue entirely. The new barn cat, Nacho, has really been helping out with that problem. 

This year I grew several large clumps of pot marigold (also known as calendula), and I harvested some of the flower heads and dehydrated them for making tea and infusing in oil for skincare products. The yellow and orange flowers below are pot marigold/calendula. We also learned that the deer detest this flower, and so we're going to plant some up by the house next year (where the deer visit), so we can see the pretty flowers from our front window.

Below are nasturtiums (yellowish orange flowers) and cosmos (pink flowers).

We also planted carnations for the first time this year. The flowers are just starting to appear. They smell divine!

Blue coneflower, cosmos, and nasturtiums are growing in wild abandon in the row below. This crazy row is packed with a huge variety of plants, including green beans and beets that I planted, along with several donor plants: potatoes, squash (both winter and summer varieties), tomatoes, Swiss chard, and dill. When you let plants go to seed and then you till the garden, the seeds disperse all over the garden, and you never know which donors will come up where!

Other flowers growing in the garden among the vegetables include borage (the blue flowers below) and a dark poppy variety that we grew for the first time. Look at the enormous seed heads on the poppy plant below! I saved several of the seed heads so we can start more of these poppies in other places on our property next year.

Several golden Hubbard squash are growing large in the garden. I'm hoping the voles leave them alone.

Flowers add so much joy to the garden. They cause the bees to hang out here, sipping from their nectar and gathering their pollen. We see a huge variety of pollinators, from the biggest bumble bees, to the teeniest, tiniest little bees, and all kinds of other flying creatures - butterflies, dragonflies, hummingbirds, and more. I let some of our vegetables go to flower and seed each year so that we can feed pollinators, birds, and other critters.

The sunflowers that appeared in the garden this year are donors. I'm pleased that they chose to appear at the far end of the garden rather than in the middle. They tend to crowd out other plants and I've read that they really aren't very good companions to vegetables. But, the pollinators and birds love them, and we enjoy their enormous, happy, smiling flower faces. Their flowers should be opening soon!

Thank you for taking a tour of our summer garden! We hope you are getting out there to enjoy the beauty of nature this time of year.