Vegetable Gardening 2010 Page Two

If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.

Our Garden March, May, June 2010

Page 1 - Our Garden 2010 | Page 2 - Our Garden March/April/May 2010 | Page 3 - 2010 Tomato Selection

March 24th 2010

We started in the garden after the winter rains.  We decided to turn the soil with a spade and not roto-till  as the ground is now easy to turn... years of composting and use of straw!.  We of course visit Roger's Gardens to get the best tomatoes.

Backyard garden
It take about two bales of straw to mulch the gardens around out home

Did you know? - A straw bale is a bundle of straw tightly bound with twine or wire. Bales may be square, rectangular, or round, depending on the type of baler used. A baler is a piece of farm machinery used to compress a cut and raked crop (such as hay, straw, or silage) into compact bales that are easy to handle, transport and store. Several different types of balers are commonly used, each producing a different type of bales – rectangular or cylindrical, of various sizes, bound with twine, netting, or wire. Industrial balers are also used in material recycling facilities, primarily for baling metal, plastic, or paper for transport.

Spring has sprung

Spring has sprung

Spring has sprung

It's Now May 2010

It takes a good solid day to go through the gardens and "clean up" which means weeding, putting tomatoes back inside their cages, and other work

May 2010 Garden
Strawberries and herbs are looking good

May 2010 Garden
The tomatoes on the West wall are getting many blossoms and some fruit is forming

May 2010 Garden
The orange tree is almost picked clean

May 2010 Garden
The North wall veggies are starting to grow

May 2010 Garden
Flower approves

May 2010 Garden
Everything out back is doing quite nicely

May 2010 Garden
Check the blue berries!

May 2010 Garden
The South wall has grapes, tomatillos, peppers, string beans

May 2010 Garden
Sue swims... Paul works... Seems fair

May 2010 Garden
These are all different "cherry tomatoes"

May 2010 Garden
Many grapes have already formed

May 2010 Garden
Nectarines are plentiful

May 2010 Garden
North wall grapes are going a little wild

May 2010 Garden
String beans are climbing

May 2010 Garden
Tomatillos and squash

It's Now June (1st) 2010

It has yet to get warm this year!

Garden June 1st 2010
Tomatillos are doing well and we are beginning to get squash

Garden June 1st 2010
Blueberries are going nuts

Did you know? - Maine produces 25% of all low bush blueberries in North America, making it the largest producer in the world. Maine's 24,291 hectares (60,020 acres) of blueberry were propagated from native plants that occur naturally in the understorey of its coastal forests. The Maine crop requires about 50,000 beehives for pollination, with most of the hives being trucked in from other states for that purpose. Many towns in Maine lay claim to being the blueberry capital and several festivals are centered around the blueberry. The wild blueberry is the official fruit of Maine and is often as much a symbol of Maine as the lobster.

While Maine is the leader of low bush blueberry production in the United States, Michigan is the leader in high bush production. In 1998, Michigan farms produced 220,000 tones (490,000,000 lb) of blueberries, accounting for 32% of the small, round berries eaten in the United States.

Garden June 1st 2010
The tomatoes are beginning to wake up

Garden June 1st 2010

Garden June 1st 2010
Pole beans are climbing

Garden June 1st 2010
We have beans down our driveway

Garden June 1st 2010
Must pick them every couple of days to keep the plant

Greenbeans

Did you know? - There are three commonly known types of green beans: string or runner beans, stringless or French beans (depending on whether the pod has a tough, fibrous "string" running along its length), and snap beans, with a thin flat pod that requires less cooking time. Compared to the dry beans, they provide less starch and protein, and more vitamin A and vitamin C. The green beans are often steamed, boiled, stir-fried, or baked in casseroles.

Garden June 1st 2010
The apple tree is loaded

Garden June 1st 2010
Swiss chard (we eat all of it)

Garden June 1st 2010
Our first tomato of the season

Garden June 1st 2010
Inside the front wall is a busy place these days

Garden June 1st 2010
We cleaned pumpkins here last year and guess what... We have pumpkins!

Garden June 1st 2010
We love fresh blackberries and they do NOT get fresher than this

Garden June 1st 2010
Japanese grapes are forming

Garden June 1st 2010
The tomato is trying to hide

Garden June 1st 2010
Lemonade anyone??

Page 1 - Our Garden 2010 | Page 2 - Our Garden March/April/May 2010 | Page 3 - 2010 Tomato Selection