Garden update (again)

Rain barrels are full, and I had to rush out and put in the overflow drains (cause I’d been lazy and not done them) to divert the extra water away the way I wanted.  For proof of concept I bought a 50ft soaker hose, put it on the end of a 25ft regular hose, and wove it around the garden for as far as it would go, and there was enough water pressure from the barrels to push water all the way to the end of it.  I’ll need more length for the rest of the garden, and it’ll take some fiddling to make sure that everything is getting appropriately watered, but as proof of concept, I’ll take it!

For reference, all the tomato cages are made out of 3ft tall welded wire.

These are the white cherry tomatoes

 

Blue Berry Tomatoes

 

Black Plum Tomatoes

 

Black Icicle Tomatoes.  No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you, yes, they are that tall.

 

Melon Pear.  Not sure these are thriving, but they aren’t dying either, so we’ll see.

 

My Variegated Japanese Willow bush.  I planted this as a little 2ft tall stick a couple years ago, now its taller and wider than my Husband.  I need to give it a quick trim and even it out, but its survived and thrived through two screwy winters.  The only reason I’ve not planted a ton more of them is cause I’d really prefer either flowering or native or both.

 

The darkest of my Lupines.  I’ll have to remember to save the seeds from it this year and spread them around.

 

The Hibiscus have sprouted, and are infact a couple inches tall already, no pictures, I forgot.  And we’re going to have a bumper crop of strawberries this year.

Potatoes……last time I tried potatoes despite my attempt at hilling them they only produced more potatoes around the base.  Doing some research it turns out that many short season potatoes will do that.  So I got longer season ones this year…..but do I keep hilling?  I mean sure, I’ve seen those “grow 100lbs of potatoes in 4 square feet) things, that have you hilling and hilling and hilling.  But “conventional wisdom” says hill twice and after that just do a layer of mulch or straw and thats it.  I have enough of the garden bed kit to put at least two more layers on the bed, so in theory I could just keep going up……