Tangled in Tendrils of Typical Tillage

This is our little home.

Our landlord said we are free to do whatever we want with the flower beds. We took great interest in this opportunity and have flowers in our front bed near the door. 

No one wanted to garden the side plot and so we took it over for our garden. We began our gardening in March, preparing the soil for planting. We had to dig up a bunch of grass (weeds, not part of the lawn). It took hours and hours of toil, digging, beating the dirt from the established roots, to claim the soil for a garden. 

 

We dug and pulled for weeks in spare evening hours after classes.

March 27th (picture from): We even started plants inside to have an earlier harvest.

April 19th: We added composted manure to the plot and worked it into the soil.

Kait and Eric who lived in the end apartment, right along the garden plot, supported our project. We were a bit nervous because they were moving out in May and we worried that someone would move in right away and think it was such a nice plot for a garden and feel entitled to it (not realizing the weeks we took to clear and prep the soil). 

April 20th: We determined where we'd plant and put string between the sticks where beans and peas would grow to make the plot look established.

I even made cute signs for the plot.

April 26th: We planted our baby cucumbers and peas and beans before heading to NY and were afraid of frost and snow. So we made mini green houses.  Kaitlyn also took care of them (watering, covering and such) while we were gone.

They survived the May snow storms.

Simon also built up a little planter area with rocks and dirt.  To retain the dirt on the other side, he wove sticks together.

After we returned from New York, a couple of the peas I'd planted along the house had begun to grow. They were so cute!

Our peas and beans did pretty well. However, toward the end of May three of our four cuke plants shriveled and died (soil problems? frost? bugs?). We were uncertain of the problems and unaware how to correct the issue.

Above  in the foreground are our bean plants we started indoors with a pea plant. 

Below are the peas and beans we planted directly by seeds outdoors. They seem to catch up in growth to the plants we began inside (particularly the peas). The peas planted outside weeks later caught up and passed the one we began inside.

May 16th

May 16th: We bought and planted some herbs: rosemary, chives, oregano, and basil.

Since our plants all seemed to be struggling (particularly the cukes by this point...and even the beans were turning a yellow...we decided we needed to test the soil). We borrowed some pH paper from a microbiology professor of mine (Dr. Grose) (whose class I took two years ago and she remembers my name still, wow).

Our soil seemed a little basic (probably between 7.5 and 8.5) while most of our plants like slightly acidic soil (5.5-6.5). We sprinkled something  that is supposed to acidify the soil on top around our plants, but there was hardly any left in the bag in the shed.

The yellow in our plants gradually began to return to a green (maybe the continual rain for a week or two began to rot the roots? Maybe we did acidify the soil slightly? or maybe something else entirely).

But by the beginning of June some of our plants began to be eaten (some leaves disappeared entirely, and large holes began to be munched). We first used slug bait (and that got rid of a number of slugs and snails). This didn't solve our whole problem though, so we also sprayed some pest spray). 

We still have a problem with aphids, so we bought some ladybugs (and we hope it's been long enough since we sprayed). They wander around and some of the ladybugs fly off. We hope they clear out the aphids, because we're really excited for peas, beans and tomatoes!

June 9th

 

In the foreground are the rapidly growing beans. In the background and in the picture below you will see our new cucumber plants to replace the ones that withered away. We planted two new ones in the place of the two completely dead.

 

Here are our lovely bean plants.

This pea is phenomenal.

Check out the size of these leaves!

Our cute lettuce and spinach (accidentally planted mustard spinach--and wow does it have zing...definitely needs to be part of a salad and isn't just for munching).

Simon created a neat tomato plant web. We planted three tomato plants around a single tomato cage and are trying to train them all up around and through it and along the web of rope. The plant closest to us is a grape tomato plant. We bought these ones already started.

June 17th: Our peas are growing. We even have two peas that have come out. They are almost a snackable size.

Our beans have also begun climbing. We almost thought we'd gotten bush beans instead of pole beans because they hadn't grown much in height for a while.

Our lettuce and spinach, although munched are also getting edible in size.

I even planted a few tomato seeds. If they survive, we'll have a second season of tomatoes!

Simon and I out in our garden. We often spend a half hour in the evening weeding--particularly the mini tree sprouts from seeds that blew down a few weeks ago. There are so many. For a while we couldn't tell them apart from the alyssum we planted.

Our beautiful flowering pea plant!

Our only surviving cucumber plant (which is still struggling along), has produced flowers, and even a single cucumber).

Our tomatoes plants are growing beautifully. We hope they get well pollinated.

Here is our little garden plot. We love to watch our plants grow and change. And as they do, and as we work together, we also grow.