Mini Garden Tour and Tips!

Hello, hello on this beautiful day! Mornings like this are my favorite type of morning. Sixty degrees, sun shining and birds chirping, hot cup of coffee within reach, slowly starting a warm summery day. It’s easy to relax out here, especially knowing that the garden is planted.

I’ve planted a garden every year we’ve lived here, and each year I learn a little more. I am by no means an expert, but I am really good at asking the right questions and finding the answer. So today I’m going to give you a little garden tour, and share some things I’ve learned along the way!

Here’s an overall shot of the garden. (Out of frame is the new blackberry bush, and the watermelon vine, which I have no clue how it will it do.) Right in the front is where the herbs are, and that big one is sage. I planted that the first year here and it gets bigger every year. The blueberry bushes are along the fence at the top right, and next to them are zucchini plants. Fifteen tomato plants run the rest of the fence. In the middle there are 4 different varieties of peppers, two different varieties of eggplant, two types of cucumbers and spinach and kale. And that photo of the eggplant definitely lasted longer than the plants. A rabbit went in after I planted them and ate them straight to the ground! So another trip to the nursery is planned for later today.

The blueberries are looking so good this year! The running joke is my husband hasn’t gotten to try any yet because the kids beat him to them every year. My kids are hit or miss sometimes with store-bought fruit, but will eat practically any fruit that we grow. Which is why we have the new blackberry plant, and why I make sure to keep the wild black raspberry canes that keep popping up. My girls will go outside daily with a bowl and just eat dozens of berries straight off the plant. I only hope they’ll remember doing it as fondly as I enjoy watching them each summer.

We’re up to five blueberry bushes, with a couple different varieties. We made sure to pick varieties that fruit at different times, to extend the eating season. The first few years pruning is not necessary, but the older ones need it to encourage new growth. Blueberry bushes are also in the same family as azaleas and love acidic soil.

And as you know I’m a crazy lady, so every so often you’ll see me emptying the French press, coffee grounds and all, on the soil around my blueberry plants, to add some extra acid to the soil. (Some morning I also do this out the window near the rose bushes for the same reason. I don’t know if anyone has seen me do it, other than our house, but it makes me laugh every time I do!)

I planted half of the stem below the leaves into the ground, to encourage more roots.

The tomatoes are honestly my favorite part of the garden, if only because we enjoy them the longest. They’re a great quick snack while I’m in the garden, or dinner addition, or cooked down into sauce at the end of the season, which we often enjoy through the winter. Every year, my awesome neighbor starts his own tomatoes from seed in his greenhouse and I’m lucky enough to get some. I planted a dozen plants from his stock and picked up two small varieties at the local nursery.

I’ll be honest and tell you I was 1000% influenced by the name, because they’re called “Dancing with the Smurfs.” I knew nothing about them other than maybe I’d be able to get my kids to eat tomatoes in a form other than sauce or ketchup. They have a slight blue hue to them and I even had a chance to try one already. It fell off a little unripe but it didn’t have the bite that a typical raw tomato would and I’m really looking forward to eating them when they’re actually ready.

I do have a couple really good tips for planting tomatoes. First, notice all the little hairs on the plant? If they’re in the soil, they’ll turn into thicker roots so make sure you remove the bottom leaves and plant those babies down into the ground! I typically end up with almost half the plant underground, but they grow so strong this way. Next, make sure you’re picking off the suckers. The suckers are the small branches that grow between the large branches and the stem. They make the plant bushier, and while they will eventually bear fruit, they’ll make the plant really dense which could allow for fungal growth and adds extra places for bugs to hide. When I planted tomatoes the first year, I didn’t pinch these branches off, and it became a tomato jungle with so many fruit falling and rotting on the vine. It’s much more manageable when they’re pruned!

That’s all the quick tour and tips for now! It’s time to start the day and replace those eggplants. I’m also going to buy some marigolds to deter those pesky rabbits from my garden, too!