Steve's 2011 Garden

Every year I say I am going to plant a smaller garden. Each year I fill up the whole plot. This spring Janet decided she would like to have some strawberries and raspberries. Andrew and Amy brought me a few raspberry plants the first part of April. Unfortunately, some of them froze so I ordered 75 strawberry plants and 12 raspberry plants from Burgess. It took over a month and one half before they finally arrived. I also ordered 25 raspberry plants from Daisy farms. They were here within a week. Not all of the strawberry plant lived so I sent for the free replacements. We eventually hope to have a good strawberry and raspberry patch.
Even though my garden seems to be later this year the garden it is doing very well. I planted five rows of potatoes on April 07 with the good help of our granddaughter, Madison Wilcox. It took them a month to come up, but they look real good. I have also planted carrots, beets, spinach, radishes, lettuce, cabbage, Swiss chard, okra, onions, and 70 pepper plants of different varieties. I have cucumbers, zucchini, yellow and butternut squash.
    I have planted my first two plantings of corn and will plant the third planting in a week. Two of our grandsons, Sam and Ethan,  helped me plant the 2nd planting. The first planting is about 10 inches tall. I planted two rows of pole beans and on Monday I will put in the poles for the beans to climb. I put in 50 tomato plants and the tomatoes are setting on, plus I have honey dew, watermelon and cantaloupe that are doing well. The ground where I planted my tomatoes and melons is covered with black plastic and is irrigated by drip system. It takes very little water to water them and there will be no weeds. I appreciate my dad teaching me how to garden and because of his good example, I try to keep my garden weed free.

I receive great satisfaction from my garden and I really enjoy eating the fresh produce.  We ate our first radishes this weekend.