This post is part of a seasonal community sharing series, Grow Together Tuesday. You’ll find posts from myself, and award winning gardener Monika Thiessen, of Prairie Girl Pottery. I love seeing what others are doing in their gardens, and since most of us aren’t neighbors, let’s peek over each other’s virtual fences, be inspired, and learn from one another! Post a link to your weekly garden notes, updates, photos, and more in the comments – any time this week!
This Week in the Garden…
Kris Antonius
We’ve been away from our garden for weeks at a time, and it’s always a joy to come home to see how it’s grown and changed, and what new treasure it has produced for us, for the bees, and for the critters who share our community. Photos taken with the iPhone, excuse the poor quality!
The borage has grown crazy huge with dozen of blooms. We used some to make borage lemonade the other day and it was delicious (post to come). The bees can’t get enough of the borage blossoms -there are a half dozen bees on each plant almost all the time!
We’ve harvested borage leaves, nettle leaves, and chickweed, and dehydrated them. These days each work period in the garden will end in something being dried or fermented!
The borage is planted in a sort of companion group or guild, with tomatoes, basil, and chard, with cucumbers growing up some trellis here and there.
As the season progresses, I’ve been looking for blank palettes to sow more seeds into – I find little spaces here and there, and add some beets or fast growing greens like tat soi or lettuce.
Two planters on either side of our front door hold some lovely herbs – here are Asian Cilantro (i think that’s what it was called), and Basil.
The raspberries are still going strong, and the strawberries are prepping for round two of fruiting.
A lovely xeriscape plant gifted by a friend. Does anyone know what it is? Is it a type of straw flower?
The purple striations in Dragon Tongue pole beans are really beautiful. These beans are best eaten while small, as they do get stringy and tough as they get larger.
Some kale and golden beets keeping each other company.
The potatoes and peas are getting along nicely.
A three sisters garden with corn supporting the beans, and some squash growing below. The squash might not make it, as they weren’t quite growing enough by the time the other plants shaded them out. There are also beets planted around the border of this grouping. You can see the bean tipi in the background – a late addition, but the kids are still loving it even as they watch just the beginnings of the beans curling their way up the poles and twine.
As we’re gone for stretches here and there, a lot of what we do when we are there is weeding! We have a couple huge weed piles around the yard…
