A Walk Through My Garden

Come take a walk through my garden. This is a longer post with a lot of pictures. Relax and enjoy.

One thing that you will notice as you walk through my garden are dandelions. We live on the water and have a field behind us. Dandelion control is a lost cause. I don't like to use herbicides that could get into the water so the dandelions stay. Yet in some ways they are a welcomed sight in the spring with their cheery yellow blooms. We enjoy the untreated dandelion leaves in salads.
Dandelion You will also notice lots of little garden decoration whimsy and flowers in the vegetable garden. We have little ones that love to find a surprise hiding under the leaves of growing plants. I love flowers in the vegetable garden as well so that's where you'll find them.

Greenhouse The greenhouse is the focal point of the garden. It is a small 6' x 8' hobby greenhouse. I grow some plants to maturity as well as start a lot of seeds in the greenhouse. I opened up the greenhouse in March. It really gets too cold to leave the greenhouse operational during the dead of winter. However, by March it was warm enough the nigh temperatures in the greenhouse stayed just above freezing.

I've had an old rocking chair in the garden for some time now. I think it signifies Mother Earth. It makes a lovely spot to set potted plants.
Rocking Chair Last year I had geraniums on the chair. This year the geraniums are sitting beside the rocker and I have marigolds planted in the pot on the rocker. So far there is no sign of seedlings yet.

I'm short and the pole beans grow to about 8' on trellises so I need a step stool in the garden. The pole beans are grown in bed #3.
Step Ladder I figured that since the pole beans haven't been planted yet but the ladder was out I might as well put it to good use. The potted flowers will be moved when the ladder is needed.

The main vegetable garden is planted in raised beds. Each bed is planted in a particular fashion using companion plantings. Bed #1 holds tomatoes, peppers, and onions. Bed #2 is home to herbs while beans and peas are grown in bed #3Beds # 1 - 4 Bed #4 is completely filled with June bearing strawberries. It wasn't meant to be this full but they filled in the bed so we have just left it.
Beds #1, 3 and 5 Beds #1-3 are 4' x 10' while beds #4 and 5 are 4' by 8'. The beds include companion planting that includes some flowers like marigolds, nasturtiums, and petunias as well.

Bed #1 and 5 This picture was taken just after tomatoes were planted. The marigolds haven't been planted yet. At the front of bed #1 there is a window box of panseys outside of the bed followed by lettuces and onions in the bed. It will be another couple of weeks before we can plant the various peppers in this bed. Later, as the tomatoes grow my husband will add the removable A-frame trellis that supports the tomatoes. Another 16 tomato plants will be planted in a new raised 4' x 4' bed outside of the main vegetable garden.

Toads are special and are welcomed in my garden anytime. They can eat an incredible amount of insects in a evening! For that reason, I don't use pesticides such as Sluggo. This type of pesticide will go through the skin of toads, killing them.
Toad So I was thrilled when I found one little guy decided to take up residence in my greenhouse. Then looking around the greenhouse I found another toad trying to get into the greenhouse. I must be doing something right to be blessed with toads.

I mentioned in a previous post how I try to attract birds to my garden. Well, these little guys love niger seed so I have a feeder special for the smaller birds. The easiest way to control the types of birds in your garden is through choice of seed followed by choice of vegetation.
Goldfinches I put up one feeder on the shed wall then filled it with a corn mixture. That was a huge mistake something I realized after chasing off two wild rabbits. I should have known better! I changed that seed to black oil sunflower seed only to be bombarded with starlings and grackles. Somehow the cowbirds missed it. The starlings are so aggressive that they chase away the song birds so I changed the black oil sunflower seed for niger seed, something the starlings don't seem to like. However, that is rather expensive so I'll be replacing the niger seed for safflower seed. Safflower seed will attract the song birds as well as cardinals. So I have three bird feeders all aimed at attracting songbirds without creating a problem by attracting unwanted critters. On feeder holds sunflower seeds. It is squirrel and large bird proof. The hopper birdfeeder will hold safflower seed to attract more song birds and the tube feeder is aimed directly at the finches.

I hope you enjoyed the walk through my garden.

Garden Gnome