"A Victory Garden"- my family's site in the States.

[Finchj]

Continued pictures from May's slide show.


May 22, 2012. Parsley comes along a little later and is quite the popular choice for specialist insects. Although we only had about four parsley plants from the year prior, now we'll have hundreds of seeds to spread throughout the garden.


May 22, 2012. Having done some yard work for a neighbor, I took the cuttings home to use as bulk-sized mulch. We had a lot of evergreen/acid material so I used this to bunker down the berm extension- which has a southwest facing aspect. I knew that we would have a hot summer, but no idea it'd turn out to be the worst drought since the 30s. Anyway, my hope was to 1) cut down wind drying out the bed 2) act as a hide for insects and 3) a slow layer of mulch. The large bunch of branches in the foreground is acting as a wee little wind break for the rest of the garden


May 22, 2012. One of my favorite photographs- we have at least three species of birds in one shot! A finch is occupying the mustard plants devouring seeds, a cardinal is swooping in (center left, red blur), a gold finch is hidden among the branches of the birch, and what could be a sparrow is perched upon a bamboo pole.


May 22, 2012. A pepper transplanted below a few mustard plants. While it'll take a while to gain some footing, the partial shade from the overstory of mustards keeps it from being stressed from the sun quite as much.


May 22, 2012. The transition zone between the old green and nightshade guilds.


May 22, 2012. Chopped and dropped red clover and alfalfa in the old nightshade guild. They regrow quite fast so a few times a season isn't out of the question. And since it takes a while to make sure we aren't cutting down other plants at the same time, this allows for quite a bit of flowers to be available throughout the cutting season. In other words, by the time we reach the end of the garden, the earliest cuttings are flowering again.


May 22, 2012. Back to the transition zone at the upper, first swale. Self sown lettuces doing well in a mixed cultivation with echinacea getting ready to put on its flower display.


May 22, 2012. Some of our native perennials growing out to size before transplanting. They include three Baptisia (indigo) species, Thermopsis caroliniana, Robinia pseduoacacia, Amorpha fruticosa, two species of Lupines and some others...


May 29, 2012. Bee balm looking nice- leggy, but still healthy. We cannot wait for the other three species of Monarda to take off.


May 29, 2012. Same location as the other chop and drop one week later. Like I said, it doesn't take long for them to regrow!


May 29, 2012. Now that is wild fungus! No idea what it is. Growing on a pine stump we chopped down November 2010.


May 29, 2012. This is an experiment that didn't do too well... cool season crops sown under a pine tree during the summer. Thought I'd give it a go, and they didn't fare very well at all. Probably needed more water besides the lack of light.


May 30, 2012. The sheet mulched bed with transplanted natives, among other crops. We took to soaking our mulch in a bucket before putting it on. Seemed a lot easier than standing over it with a watering can waiting for the wood to become saturated. The squash produced prodigious amounts of food this summer.


May 30, 2012. Bumblebees love onions.


May 30, 2012. Cucumber seedlings, among other veges and herbs, emerging in a newly established bed.


May 30, 2012. A view of aforementioned bed. It had been growing copious amounts of chickweed over the winter, which I chopped and dropped regularly. The soil was soft in this minihugel mound and we put mini terraces and little pools for water to stay in when it rains (or when we water). Cucumbers, tomatoes, and sunflowers were the main crop with many other herbs making an appearance.


May 30, 2012. While we are happy to see bees and other pollinators, we cannot help but to feel that if neonicotinoid pesticides were not used by our neighbors that we would literally be humming with bees. Unfortunately, people do not know what they are using. At my place of occupation I regularly informed customers that it was being banned abroad, but the stuff still flew off the shelves. Systemic pesticides are "easy." An easy way to kill off the bees...

[Finchj]

June's slide show is the last from 2012 that'll have photos I took. So, lets take a look at some of the highlights from June.


June 5, 2012. How do you clean water before it enters a pool or pond? Vegetation! The more vegetation, the less run off and the cleaner your water will be. Even better, the more biomass accumulated into the soil the slower the water will move through the landscape. While we may want our ponds to fill and fill fast, they will stay full longer as long as we continue to increase the organic matter in the soil.


June 5, 2012. Two gifted plants- asparagus and a tomato. We were fortunate enough to meet a few other like minded people in the area and they were happy to share some gifts with us (and vice versa!).


June 13, 2012. Comfrey and great blue lobelias occupying two different niches along the second swale. The GBLs will occasionally be flooded when the swale fills completely- mimicking their preferred soggy habitat. Russian comfrey enjoys a steady supply of water and is placed on the downslope- its strong roots holding soil and accumulating nutrients as they wash into the swale. Both produce beautiful flowers!


June 13, 2012. We were also gifted almost thirty strawberry plants that couldn't find a home this summer. So we experimented by putting them in full sun, partial shade, and elsewhere. My family report back that they even produced some strawberries for us in the first month of transplanting.


June 13, 2012. This was a surprise: what I believed to be dead or dying mustard plants decided to have another round of flowering. Just incredible to see them continuing in their efforts to produce offspring.


June 13, 2012. I believe that echinacea must be medicinal for other creatures as well as ourselves- and even if it doesn't- it'll delight the insects regardless.


June 13, 2012. Now this was an experiment inspired by Yacouba Sawadoga's methods of digging holes and filling them with compost to amend the soil. While we may not live in a desert, I figured that sinking water storage into the ground could be a good way to turn the "overflow ditch" I had dug in 2011 into something useful. So, out comes the shovel and I dug 20-30 gallon holes and filled with water logged mulch. By stepping them down the side of the fence, we could absorb large amounts of rainwater without putting in potentially dangerous holes.


June 13, 2012. Part of the south facing berm with all sorts of plants growing in the first year.


June 13, 2012. Volunteer shade growing tomatoes that fruit. Who knew?


June 13, 2012. Another view of our new addition to the garden. The next step is to bring in more aquatic plants to clean up the water and improve the ecosystem services the ponds can provide.


June 16, 2012. Birds can't eat every last seed. Or, maybe sometimes they can but not here. The seeds get lost in the mulch and are free to sprout. Strangely, these brassicas believe that mid summer is a good time to grow! We are hoping enough seeds were smart enough to remain dormant.


June 16, 2012. Another frog has taken up residency in the upper, smaller pond. This must mean our supply of food enough for the two frogs to tolerate one another.


June 16, 2012. And lastly more echinacea along with lettuce flowering. These lettuce plants will produce the second generation of lettuce grown on site.

[Finchj]

Just finished editing some photos from late June and through July that my parents had taken. So expect to see another slide show detailing those! I'm hoping to convince them to ask my sister-in-law who has an iPhone to perhaps... do a walk-through on Skype with my and maybe we could record it. Why? Because my parents are using my "old" point and shoot. The photos are much better than I expected, but I'll have to rely upon my ... ahem.. narration skills to show you whats going on. The camera has been through a lot and just doesn't like to expose properly.

That said, you'll see what drought brings to the garden as well as some freakishly large sunflowers and squash plants!