Progress

A couple weeks ago we started moving the seedlings into the garden. The new section of the garden was like a clay slurry, didn't inspire confidence in the plant growth.

The poor little pepper in the next photo had to be thinking "What are they doing to us, it chilly and there's not real dirt!".

I'm sure the tomatoes were not very happy either.

Now the plants in the "old" section were much happier with their surroundings. This soil has been worked for the past 5 years and is in OK shape. Every year the straw & newspaper (weed control) gets tilled into the sol along with the years supply of leaves. There's also the addition of some nice mulch from our compost pile which goes under / around all our friends.

Well, today I completed adding the newspaper and straw to the walkways - no more slogging through the clay slurry. I lay down 3 or 4 sheets of news paper (sometimes playing catch the paper when the winds comes along) and cover them with some straw. Besides providing a much nicer place to walk, this provides excellent weed control, retains moisture (we will get to the Sahara conditions in a few weeks I'm sure) and helps the clay turn to plant raising soil as it get tilled in with the fall leaves.

The Kale just looks so cozy sitting there between the straw.

Yes, those straw rows are nice and wide, 18" to 24" at least. After years of wiggling through the garden, it's time to walk easily among the fruit (well, veggies) or our labor. The Kale is coming back after the stunting it received from the rain deluge. Think it was getting tired or treading water to survive. Now it's still in clay (with some nice mulch right around the plants, but at least it's getting to dry out. Actually, everything is starting to pop!

Our newest member of the garden is turning out to be a strong, fast growing colorful plant. Never thought cabbage wold be so cute when it's little.

I went a little overboard with sweet peppers this year. They were very slow to start so I carefully separated each seedling into their own cow pots as they began to grow. Of course, they've now all begun to take off. So, what do your do? You expand your sweet pepper patch AND add a second patch of course.

We had a couple strawberry plants that had to get moved this year. Actually I'm surprised they are still alive. They were in a rather tough neighborhood in the back yard, lots of weeds and not much TLC. Anyway, we pulled them out of the ground and put them into a couple pots (pots embedded in wooden geese sculptures). The geese sculptures are my wife's, a find from one of her garage sale trips.

Of course there are still some over flow plants on the deck, even after sending many to news homes with friends.

This weekend hasn't been all about the garden. I've gotten to spend a good 8 hours or so per day getting things in shape, but we've had a little time distraction. You'll notice in the next picture the back of the house is sporting a fancy blue tarp. Pulled out an old (40-50 year old patio slider door for replacement only to find massive water damage to the structure of the house. Seems I'll be sharing my time between the garden and the new house project at least for a little while.

I leave you with one last photo of the garden, the new back half, It's looking pretty good. Today was a long hot day, but the end result makes me smile.