Two Updates: Urban Garden and Photo Series

>> Tuesday, July 15, 2014

In early May, I had a post titled "Addition to our Family," and here's how it started:

Saturday was a big day. We've been working on the landscaping around the garage (see this post from last month to see some previous work). We were finally going to plant our raised veggie beds and then re-seed part of the neighbor's yard that got torn up during garage construction last fall.

Here's a "before" shot from Saturday morning:


Skinny raised beds, pavers, and re-graded yard ready to be seeded.

And here's an "after" shot from Saturday afternoon:


Oh wait, that's not our garden. That's Charlie - my new son!!!

Yeah, Saturday didn't quite go as planned.

Well, here's a quick update. We got our plants planted a few days after Charlie was born. Here's 2 photos a few days after planting on May 18:


Tomatoes and peppers on top, and herbs and onions to the right.


View from the other side. Sidenote: the pavers go RIGHT up to our property line!

Just over a month later (on June 25) this is what it looked like:


Tall grass, GIANT tomatoes, nice sized basil, and zucchini spreading out at the lower right.


Some cherry tomatoes a few days later.


Picking some cherry tomatoes on July 3rd before visiting some family. (50 harvested so far.)
And that's a zucchini on the upper right, LOTS of basil, and a ton of cucumber blossoms.

And here are 4 final photos from Friday (July 11):


Overall shot (notice the new rain barrel to the far right too!).


Tomatoes are going CRAZY. No more cherry tomatoes yet, but round 2 is forming.


We've harvested basil twice, and our zucchini needs more space in the back.


Just before harvesting my first cucumber of the new garden. Another one is close.

The pepper plants are growing well and have a lot of blossoms, but very VERY few peppers forming - we've always had that problem. We'll see what we get by the end of the summer!

And unrelated: last week, I posted a small new series of photos over on my Photo Blog. It's photos of the Minneapolis / St. Paul area at 4 a.m. Here are 2 examples (click to enlarge):


Under the Franklin Ave Bridge.


High Water at Harriet Island.

Click here to check them all out. Thanks!

3 comments:

Shinianen 6:30 AM, July 15, 2014  

Our peppers never seem to work either. Must be a MN thing. However, your tomato ... Tree?! ... That thing is massive!!

Bikerpete 8:59 AM, July 15, 2014  

Hello Steve,

has to be a great year for tomatoes. :-)
Same pic here in germany. They are about to reach the top of our pavilion.
Wet warm weather starts the turbo.

Do you manually fill your rain barrel?
When it comes to those garden-jobe, I must confess, that I am bone-lazy.
So I recommend to buy a automatic rainwater collector.
When the barrel is full, it lets pass the rest of the rain. :-)

I only hav a german link, but I guess you should find it in your local roofer store:
http://www.dachdecker-shop.eu/Zink-Fallrohr-Wassersammler-mit-Schlauch-d100mm-frostsicher_p1555_x2.htm

Keep it growing :-)

Steve Stenzel 9:40 PM, July 15, 2014  

Biker Pete, if you check the pics of the rain barrel, look just above it - it fills right from the drain. Super easy! And then there's an overflow hose at the top (that you can't see in the photos) that drains off extra water. It's great so far!

Only complaint is that there's not enough pressure to water directly from the barrel, just enough to fill watering cans.

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