New Garden Space Project Part 1

I've really been wanting to expand my garden lately. Currently I have three 3'x3' raised beds, one 2'x3' raised bed and a bit of space on the side of my house for my berry plants and all looks like this:

This is all at the side of my house. The farthest raised bed you see is my current spinach/lettuce bed. I used to keep my bunny Charlie in the space next to it and looks like this:

Ever since Charlie passed away over two months ago, this spot has been left untouched. I think I've finally finished grieving and ready to let go. So I've decided to take this all apart and use it as an extension of my vegetable garden. This spot actually gets much more sun than my raised beds since the house doesn't shade it during the morning and early afternoon. I think it'll be perfect for raspberries, tomatoes, and maybe even peppers next year. :) This is where my asparagus is popping up from, but I'll replant them elsewhere next year.... maybe.

I've been having difficulty reaching the far left corner of my spinach/lettuce bed so I decided I wanted a walkway between the wood bed and the stone bed. I also don't like to reach far at all, but still wanted lots of planting space so this was my solution:

Tadaa! I'll lay down rectangular stones to match the other walkways between my other beds.  I've always liked the look of two-leveled planting beds and this way i can just step over and stand on the top stones instead of reaching 3 feet toward the back end of the bed. I've only got the corner done, but I like how it's looking so far :) 

A Wonderful Surprise

Look at what was waiting for me in the garden this morning!

My first flower on my pea plants :D The plants are about a foot tall now. If they're flowering, does that mean they stop growing? I made such a tall teepee for them, it'll be a shame if they didn't reach the top.

In the neglected corner of my backyard...

My asparagus are growing like crazy! I discovered these in my backyard last year. I didn't pick one fast enough and it started turning into a tree.  I cut it down anyways though, I hope that was okay. I'm planning to dig it up during the winter and splitting them up for next year. Especially since they're growing from such a random spot, I want to actually have a "planned" spot for them in the garden :)

Okras

I planted my okras in front of my squash/zucchinis. The squash all have a trellis to climb for support but for my okras I'll probably put in stakes and tie them up. I've never actually even seen an okra plant in my life so I'm really excited to see how they grow. 

I'm cheating with the okra though. All the plants in my garden I grew from seed but my okra plants died when my boyfriend forgot to water them while I was gone :( So my mom graciously gave me some of her seedlings since I gave her the seeds to start with haha. One of my plants did survive though but it's teeny tiny. So a total of 6 plants. 5 hers, 1 mine. I hope mine does better ;P

Pests In My Garden

Find the difference between the two pictures!

 

Two days after transplanting my tomatoes into bigger pots, a robin came down and completely dug out two of them!

I don't know if she's trying to make a nest or feed her young, but she keeps coming back and attacking my garden. :( I've never had bird problems before but I'm wondering if I should put up netting, especially on my berry plants. There's a couple of robins that keeps coming into my garden as well as a bunch of chickadees. The chickadees don't seem like they do any harm to my garden at all but the robins are trampling and stealing my beautiful veggie plants!

I have PLENTY more pests in my garden :( My veggies are all gonna be eaten before I can get to them...

My raspberry bush. I'm guessing it's snails, but a couple of the leaves have big holes in them. Very minor damage.

My blueberry bush is getting COMPLETELY eaten up :( So many nibble bites on them! I caught two caterpillar looking things about a month ago when most of the damage happened, but something is recently eating it up again. I hope I find those munchers.

Leaf Miner eggs on my spinach. I hand pick the eggs every day which seems to help out a lot. I get 2 or 3 damaged leaves every day still though.

My lettuce that finally came up is getting attacked too. Maybe snails? Maybe the birds, since I saw a robin trampling over my spinach/lettuce bed earlier today. BOO.

Lovely Red Strawberry

Do you see what I see? :D

There's a LOT of buds and berries on my three tiny strawberry bushes. This is soooo exciting!! I've grown strawberries once a long time ago but they were teeny tiny ugly looking berries that didn't taste very good. This time I bought Ranier Strawberries which are supposed to yeild bigger berries. Looking great so far! The backside is still a bit green so I'm hoping it'll be edible in another day or two. YAY.

More To Harvest

I harvested a handful of baby spinach, parsley, cilantro, basil, and asparagus from my garden for my lunch today. The menu is spicy salmon, spinach salad, and a side of asparagus.

 

The flavors of the herbs are so amazing! It's so different compared to the dried kinds I'm used to from my counter top spice rack.

I can't wait to be able to harvest tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, and all that good stuff. I'm still in shock at how much I'm actually able to grow outside! My black thumbs are apparently slowly turning green... :)