The Modern Victory Garden

I like to periodically take overview pictures of the garden throughout the year. It provides a great reference on where plants were growing and how far along they were as of the point in time the picture was taken. Now that the garden has been expanded my overview shots need to be come in two sweeps - side and back area. The side area is the older section of garden.   

The new garden area is behind the house.                                   

Another view of it from the end of our back deck. Notice the rhodies blooming in the back area.

Today I did some damage control on the new vertical bed pole bean plantings ("Blue Lake").  I had pretty spectacularly bad germination on the pole beans and several of those that did come up - expired soon thereafter. However, there were several plants that did make it and were thriving. Unfortunately, they were scattered here and there across a very long bed with huge gaps of empty area in between. My remedy was to carefully transplant some of the beans to combine them into one section - so that there was one grow support structure full of plants that were thriving. I did not have any "Blue Lake" pole bean seeds left, so I planted two section lengths with "Sunset" runner beans (using up the last of these seeds) and the last section length with "Telegraph Improved" cucumbers. The carrots that are growing the entire length of this bed in the front portion are getting some good top growth now and are starting to look like a real carrot patch.        

While the pole beans have been a challenge to get started this spring, the bush beans have been astoundingly healthy and fast starting. Here's the bed when it was planted up on May 9th.                      

And here it is today on May 30th.                                              

The tomatoes are doing well too. Let's look at the tomato bed as it has progressed so far this year. Here it is when it was planted up on April 19th.

And here it is on May 9th.                                                       

 The tomato patch today - May 30th.                                                   

It's interesting to see how the growth occurs and how long it takes the plants to move through the various growth stages. Just for grins, here is another before and after comparison. This is the pea patch as it looked on May 6th.

And again, here it is today - May 30th. They have certainly grown in 3 weeks! Setting blossoms now too - so the pea harvest is not too far into the future. 

In addition to fixing the pole bean bed problem, I also watered the potato beds thoroughly. There are a few small emerging plants yet, but most of them are all up and have had all their soil pulled back into the trench.  

Time to wrap this update post up and go harvest some lettuce for tonight's dinner table. I hope you were able to spend time in your garden today too.