Garden 2007
Welcome to the end of season virtual tour of my garden! Bring a snack ...



This is the primary entrance to the main portion of the garden. I put the fencing and the bales up last fall and slowly worked to fill up the bale beds with soil over the winter. I also built two cold frames (the box on the left) that I will be using this winter. This is the first year for the garden so it's been a real learning experience to find out what will grow well (most things that can be transplanted after they get larger than the slugs), what won't (carrots never make it much past germination due to the slugs), and what to do differently next year (kill more slugs!). I figure the bales will last another season and then they will become that much more soil.

Let's go inside ...



First we have Sacrificial Artichoke #9. As you can clearly see, they were never sacrificed, but the name will stick as it was the ninth attempt at planting artichokes (transplants from the old house, from crowns, and several purchased plants). In every previous case, slugs or something else ate the tender starts. This time I bought the seedlings in the spring as usual and re-potted them to grow to a foot tall before I set them out. It worked! Since they both lived, I will separate them next spring and also purchase some of the more exotic varieties such as Violetto. These are the standard Green Globe. I had great success in Anacortes with the plants reaching over 10 feet tall. We'll see how they do here.

It's hard to see but at the base of the maple stump there is a grape called Canadice. It's a sweet seedless pink variety which is quite tasty with small round berries and a firm skin. It's supposed to do well in our wet climate. It's growing up a volunteer Cascara that I left as a temporary support. The grape will probably be moved at some point. In the foreground are some marigolds (from saved seed) and on the right a few chard.

Let's see what's going on in those pots ...



One of the benefits of companion planting, even in pots, is that pests get confused. Here we can see tomatillos, tomatoes and chillis. The tomatillo is a purple variety, this chilli is a Mulato Isleño, and my tomato labels are on the backs of the pots so this one is just red.



Further along we have a green pepper which is most likely a red variety called Staddon's Select. On the right is called a Garden Peach tomato which is an heirloom variety dating from the 1800's. I'll have to save seed from this one as I bought it as a seedling. It's slightly fuzzy and quite wonderful. Next year I won't lose my pepper tags!

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