Back in April of this year, I was assigned a plot at my local community garden. A high point for me. A new garden is an empty canvas, a new adventure, and a lot of work. Now its August. Four months have gone by very fast. It seems like a good time to put together a series of photos and see what’s what.
Late June and early July were a time of rapid growth, lush and green. I was harvesting nice heads of lettuce, big radish, lots of fava beans, spring onions and baby early summer squash. Everything grew very well.
Then came an unusually hot and wet July. Many of my mid- and late-summer crops did not fare so well. My peas produced almost nothing, soy beans were eaten by critters, tomatoes succumbed to leaf spot and cucumbers failed since I forgot to fertilize and lime their patch. But other crops did and are still doing super. I have nice harvests of potatoes, onions, carrots, beets, beans, kale and summer squash.
The seasons go on and August moves toward autumn. I’m planting fall greens and watching my pumpkins and large squashes ripen on their vines. And I’m planning what I’ll do differently next year. I asked for and was given permission to expand my garden to the east. Maybe another 10 feet or so. A project for the late fall and spring. I have visions of a small asparagus bed and more space between my tomato plants.
It seems like a good time to reflect on the way a garden is always changing. Gardening is a mix of planning and memories. I feel better that I can capture at least some of it in photographs.
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Your photo’s remind me of the front perennial border. It truly is amazing how how fast beds can go from earth to masses of plants.
The morning glory photo you have up is simply amazing, you have a keen eye!
I always love succession photos. I wish we had community gardens here, HMM I wonder if I could start some.
At the end of the season it would be wonderful to get a play-by-play with the pictures — what you did, basically, each month. I notice the walkways you put in, and the fencing, and I realize that if I were given a blank canvas like that, I wouldn’t know where to start, or what order to do things in! It would be great to learn from your method — whatever the method happens to be.
I enjoy succession photos, too, and your vegetable gardening photos are always great.
I noticed one of the regional mail order nurseries that I’ve ordered plants from had used one of your photos as a ‘wonderful city garden’ in their vegetable gardening piece — Skippy was recognizable!
Our drought in the southeastern U.S. continues, so we’ve got the opposite challenge from you — but I’ve got high hopes for my fall plantings, as long as we can still water….
Well that’s interesting that a mail order nursery is using my photo. I wasn’t aware of that. I wonder why they didn’t ask me. I thought the copyright notice was pretty clear at the Flickr site. Maybe I should add a notice on my site. I didn’t want to clutter it up.
If you don’t mind letting me know who used my photo, I would appreciate it.
I was very happy that a few months back when I was asked by Meridith Books if they could use a photo of mine in a publication of theirs: Miracle-Gro Complete Guide to Perrenials. It is just a tiny photo of salt marsh hay. But they paid me for the photo and I was really impressed with the company.
By the way I love your site and your beautiful photos! I wish I could share our extra water with you.
It’s quite a small family-owned nursery in Alabama called The Tasteful Garden — I thought it was a bit odd that they didn’t actually attribute it to your blog and your garden!
They seem to be a nice couple with nice plants, based on their website… but here’s the URL http://www.tastefulgarden.com/store/pc/viewContent.asp?idpage=36
to her Kitchen Garden piece. If that’s not your home garden, it sure looks like it- maybe I’m wrong. It’s possible the photos came via some secondary source, too.
Your photos of your gardens ARE wonderful, and your home garden beds are a definite inspiration, so I’m not surprised you’d be an example that people would want to use (I like to mention your site when I do programs about vegetable gardening….)
Wish I could get your extra water — thanks for the nice words about my site. I enjoy doing it!
You have a wonderful veg patch. I wish I had that space to grow stuff. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to reading more.