There is truly something alchemical about the square foot garden. It isn't even a month old and we're already eating kale, Swiss chard, arugula, lettuce, parsley, onions, and cilantro from it. I'm also realizing the cucumber is ready to start leaping, and the bush tomatoes have flowers. Today I discovered that one of the little okra plants has two baby okra pods forming. The spinach seedlings are up, too. So on the right is my plan for dealing with the cucumbers. Luckily I planted the lone cucumber over on the side of the bed with the lettuce, kale, spinach, and arugula-- all shade loving plants. So I am training the cucumber to go up the trellis and will nudge it out of the plastic turkey netting towards covering the roof of the bed, forming a kind of pergola, which might shade the shade-lovers while giving the cucumber its desired height and sun. Eventually I can get rid of the turkey net, but not yet as the turkeys are still roaming and we also have other animals-- groundhog, squirrels, Jesse-- that want to dig in that nice soil and plunder the plants.
Here's Jesse helping me weed today. He loves to hide in the garden among the gladioli and sunflowers and rudbekia. Ever on the lookout for voles and moles, he spends a lot of time rooting around in the flower part of the garden. That's fine, but I don't need him digging in the square foot garden since it has a mole barrier under it. On the right is the stone ram in summer. Last time I drew him it was on a snowy day and he had a foot of snow on his head. Now bees circle him and the sun keeps him so warm that Jesse likes to sit on his back and snooze sometimes.
If you haven't seen Jacob's blog
Jacob Diehn Photography with his amazing posts from Saturday, check it out. He posted today, and it's interesting to look at his shots of the building site that I drew Saturday.
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