Gate is finished

I should have posted about this a week or so ago, but the gate is completely finished.  I added a handle on the inside of the door (easier to close it) as well as a tensioning system to improve on the hang.  It now hangs nice and level.

We have paw paws on the trees!

This doesn't strictly stick to the "orchard" label, but it's close enough.

While retrieving tomato cages yesterday to use for the cucumbers, The Boy and I noticed that we have paw paws on some of the trees.  I'd never had any before (or seen them, either) before we purchased this property so I'm still warming up to the flavor.  I wasn't a fan of the fresh flavor.  I hope to make some ice cream or sorbet this year with that providing flavor.  Might also try it in a smoothie.

Father's Day progress - asparagus, beans, tomatoes, and corn

Yesterday was Father's Day in the States.  With that in mind, Wifey gave me some time to get some work done in the garden.

I started out by finally getting the boxes in the garden to house our permanent plantings of asparagus.  That was a bit of a relief for me since I'd had them made and waiting to get "planted" for a week.  Each box is 7'x3' and made out of 2x12's.  The stuff on top of the soil is some of the wood shavings the asparagus was packed in.

The asparagus variety I used is the Jersey Knight.  I don't expect to get anything this year.  I'll just be happy if we get any growth.  Because I've had the starters for a few months, I wouldn't be shocked if they're dried out and needing to be replaced.  Again, it took me a lot longer to get the garden established this year than I'd thought.

Once the asparagus boxes were sunk and populated, I snagged The Boy to help me set up bean trellises for our pole beans.  He held the poles while I used the sledge hammer to "gently" drive them in.  After that, we used synthetic twine to create the support for the beans to climb.

Below are some pictures showing progress in the garden.

I'm pretty happy with how things are progressing considering how busy we've been around the property with other projects and also considering around 20% of the space is still waiting to have compost added/tilled into the soil for planting.

Slight update

Nothing especially new to report on in the veggie garden.

• The beans are growing taller.  They're the the point where I need to start trellising them.
• The tomatoes and peppers are also growing.  The tomatoes are around 2' tall now and peppers are slowly getting taller.  I've been pinching off leaves and flowers on each to encourage each to grow upward.
• The first planting of corn is around 1' tall.
• The sweet potatoes are slowly growing as are the cucumbers.
• The Boy's garden is also slowly growing.  Not surprised that it's farther behind the main plantings considering we got his stuff in the ground a few weeks later.
• No major signs of growth from any of the seeds I planted last weekend.  That's not surprising to me -- it's only been 5 days.

More seeds in the ground

Earlier today I got some time to plant some more seeds.  I did a second planting of corn, planted some scarlet runner beans, two varieties of carrots, and some hot-weather friendly spinach.  Sadly, there's no point in taking pictures -- I'd just be showing blank soil.

Gate improvements

Almost not worth posting about, but the gate now has a handle on the outside and a latch.  I haven't mounted a handle on the inside of the door, but I'm leaning toward doing so.  Focused on landscaping in the back with staining the deck wood on the horizon.

The garden gate is slowly progressing

A few weeks ago I posted that I'd built a gate for the garden.  Unfortunately, I'm still not finished.  With our ping-ponging back and forth between rebuilding the deck and re-landscaping the area around there and the garden, nothing is quickly getting finished. 

Last night we finally took a few minutes away from landscaping the back yard to install the cage material on the gate.  It wasn't hard to do and didn't take all that long, but it's finished. 

Sorry, but there are no pictures just yet.  I still need to mount the handle and latch.  I hope to do that today. 

Garden progress - caging the tomatoes and The Boy plants his veggies

Yesterday we managed to do some gardening in a little bit of "free time" between our tasks of rebuilding the deck in the back yard and re-landscaping the area around it.

I roto-tilled the compost that I'd spread out on the far side of the far path in the garden then worked with The Boy to plant his veggie plants.  See, we'd promised The Boy and The Girl that they could have their own sections of the garden to do whatever (within reason) they wanted to do.  The Boy decided he wanted 2 tomato plants, 3 bell pepper plants, 1 chive, 2 watermelon plants, 1 zucchini plant, 2 cucumber plants, and a peanut plant.  I've never known anyone to have grown peanuts so I'm curious to see how it turns out.

Once all that was planted, Wifey, The Boy, and I set up tomato cages around the tomato plants a few of the larger pepper plants.

Then we got back to landscaping the back yard again.

More stuff in the ground, more compost

I've made some more progress in the side garden this week.

A few days ago I planted some petunias and marigolds (companion plants!) in and around the veggies. 

I'm also happy to report that most of the corn kernels have sprouted.

Yesterday also marked the second day that I put down cubic yards of composted leaves.  The far side (adjacent to the property line) is now almost entirely ammended with a tiny bit added on the near side.  I still need to roto-till it into the existing soil.

I figure that one more cubic yard of compost should finish up that part of the job.