Here are some notes about the garden for next year.

The planter beds are too shallow for plants that grow tall. They are better for spring greens and root vegetables like radishes and beets. I planted shishitos in one of the beds and they are producing very well, but the plants are falling over and the shallow soil won’t support stakes. I will likely replace the two planters on the south side with a large, raised bed. Four of the planters will be enough.

The Early Girl II tomatoes are very prolific, but small.

I planted several year old Slow-Bolting Cilantro and the germination rate was likely about 1%.

I will need larger tomato cages in the St. Anne’s bed. The Early Girl Tomatoes grow like weeds, and the red cages I bought at Countryside are too small.

I need to stay on top of getting the tomatoes and tomatillos to stay in their cages. I should probably do some pruning early on.

I need to do a better job of succession planting radishes and spring greens.

I planted the okra three plants across the bed. I think this is likely too dense. We’ll see what happens in the next couple of weeks.

This is probably the best garden that I have ever had. The raised beds and work that I put in this spring are paying big dividends in mid-summer. Other than the tops of one zucchini plant being trimmed and a couple bites out of tomatoes and zucchini; there has been little animal damage so far.

The cucumbers are producing well, even though they were the last vegetables to be planted. I’ve had the biggest green peppers that I’ve ever grown. I was able to give a few Tomatillos to Noah when he mowed this week. The okra was slow starting, but I should have enough to pick in the next day or so. Blackberry production has been amazing despite the rabbits stripping the bork off of many of the canes over the winter. I made pancakes for myself this morning and topped them with a pile of fresh blackberries. Benedicamus Domino!

I’ve had a hard time keeping up with watering, but better than i the past. Having the spigot in the garden and a light hose has made a big difference. I need to do some trimming and tieing up in the next few days. I was busy with St. Anne programs, then we had Toby for a week and then Kevin and the St. Louis gang was in for the weekend. Then cousin’s week and our trip to St. louis last weekend. I am slowly gettin back on track.

Weeds are not a problem with the raised beds and I pull out a godd portion of the weeds while I am watering. The only thing coming through the mulch is sedge, I am getting rid of most of it, but it takes several courses of Roundup to kill it.

I picked the House of Hope bed today, plus the tomatoes from my two Early Girl II plants and took over about temn pounds of tomatoes over to St. Anne’s.

The St. Louis Karney’s were her to drop off Evan for next week. They had been up in the Dells all week while we took care of Toby. I think Toby’s presence caused the groundhog to leave town as there has been no damage since.

The Cherokee Carbon tomatoes are slowly starting to ripen. The green peppers are extremely large and very prolific. The zucchini is extremely sneaky, and large ones appear from nowhere. They like to grow along the edge of the green metal bed and are exactly the same color as the bed.

While building the raised beds this spring, I also wanted to make the garden a place of beauty and maybe have some things for the grandchildren. I have often read Annabelle the poem “Fairies,” by Rose Fyleman, and some of the references there have shown up in the garden. So here’s a bit of a picture gallery.

I have a weathervane and a few more items to install. Hopefully soon!

It started a couple of days ago with the tops of my Zucchini plants chewed off and a couple of tomatoes-on-the-vine half eaten. The incisor marks on these zucchinis point to a large rodent, likely the infamous groundhog. He must not have liked the zucchini, as he bit through the skin and stopped.

I bought a Trail Cam but haven’t set it up, yet as I will need to install a post to mount it on. Did I really expect to get by just by foiling the rabbits.

I tool the first batch of tomatoes over to the Food Pantry at St. Anne’s today. I let Annabelle pick them this weekend and I told her the story of how they go to feed people that don’t have enough to eat. I planted a bed of tomatoes just for the food pantry. Produce from other gardeners in the parish is starting to arrive, too.

The garden is exploding with the heat…

We’ve had temperatures i the 90s for the past couple of weeks and it has pushed the garden along. I picked the firs of the Early Girl II tomatoes on July 3 and had tomato toast for breakfast. This is almost two weeks later than last year, and I think due to the cold weather through May and into the first couple of weeks of June. The difference this year is that the plants are loaded with larger tomatoes and there will be a large number ripening soon, but the container garden is slow. I was behind on fertilizing but got that done over the weekend.

I picked a variety of vegetables and made a 4th of July Fritatta.

The first tomato ripened around July 1st. Because of all the chaos of trying to get the garden finished, Natalie returning from Europe, and 4th of July festivities, I did not record when the first tomato ripened. I think it was a Champion, not an Early Girl II. That’s about a week later than last year. I think the cool May and early June slowed down the ripening process.

The plants are vigorous and loaded with Tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes aren’t doing as well as I haven’t fertilized yet.