Four great plants for your garden every year
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Sarah Jackson / The Herald
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Sarah Jackson / The Herald
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Sarah Jackson / The Herald
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Sarah Jackson / The Herald
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BEFORE: Here is the garden in early spring with beds planted with (starting clockwise in the lefthand rectangle), pea pods, sweet peas, beans (barely coming up), strawberries, tomatoes surrounded by garlic, cucumbers and squash (not yet germinated) and tomatoes and thyme. In the foreground is part of our fig tree.
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Sarah Jackson / The Herald
Here is the garden in August with sweet peas in the foreground, followed by (clockwise from the lefthand side) summer squash, sweet peas, beans, beans and all you can see are beans. Not pictured: Tomatoes in other beds!
Friday, August 26, 2011 | 12:01 am
If it were up to me, every blog and Facebook post would be required to have at least one photo.
I can't get enough of photos, especially veggie garden shots and pictures of people's kids.
Here are some photos from my garden, including four things I planted this year that I will plant again because they are bringing me so much joy.
I'm also posting, at the end, before-and-after spring-summer shots of the garden, just for fun.
Garlic
I planted this crop for the first time this year and it is wonderful.
You get to watch the shoots grow all winter long and you can leave space in between rows for tomatoes and then harvest the garlic just when the tomatoes are getting too big for their space, usually early July, late July this year.
It was easy for me to cure the mature bulbs in my carport and I am ready now to roast the bulbs and spread the resulting goo on crusty bread.
Sunflowers
Despite the abysmal spring and early summer weather, my sunflowers are doing great, most of them are at least 6 feet tall or more.
I've never been able to get them to germinate at a high percentage in my garden, so I have to plant a lot of seeds, but they get so big, about 12 feet tall for many varieties, and they are beautiful even before they bloom.
They continue to put on their show into fall.
Two are standing like sentinels over my pumpkin patch. One even volunteered from last year and is taller than the second-story deck in my backyard.
Blueberries
They're better than strawberries because you don't have to replace the plants every three years. They're better than raspberries because they don't spread like crazy and they don't need pruning every year.
And they taste great.
Many varieties can be grown in well-watered pots and many have fall color.
They also do just fine when the tomato year is bad.
Just be sure to water frequently. Blueberries love water in summer.
I put mine on drip irrigation this year and our harvest quadrupled.
Echinacea
I bought my first cone flower, a bright pink, last year and abused it in a tiny 1-gallon pot for an entire year, just barely keeping it alive.
I put it in the ground this past fall and it is thriving, even next to a patch of aggressive mint.
It has been blooming since June, I swear, and it just keeps going and hardly needs deadheading. I highly recommend it.
It's a Great Plant Pick for a reason.
What did you grow this year that is still doing well?
I can't get enough of photos, especially veggie garden shots and pictures of people's kids.
Here are some photos from my garden, including four things I planted this year that I will plant again because they are bringing me so much joy.
I'm also posting, at the end, before-and-after spring-summer shots of the garden, just for fun.
Garlic
I planted this crop for the first time this year and it is wonderful.
You get to watch the shoots grow all winter long and you can leave space in between rows for tomatoes and then harvest the garlic just when the tomatoes are getting too big for their space, usually early July, late July this year.
It was easy for me to cure the mature bulbs in my carport and I am ready now to roast the bulbs and spread the resulting goo on crusty bread.
Sunflowers
Despite the abysmal spring and early summer weather, my sunflowers are doing great, most of them are at least 6 feet tall or more.
I've never been able to get them to germinate at a high percentage in my garden, so I have to plant a lot of seeds, but they get so big, about 12 feet tall for many varieties, and they are beautiful even before they bloom.
They continue to put on their show into fall.
Two are standing like sentinels over my pumpkin patch. One even volunteered from last year and is taller than the second-story deck in my backyard.
Blueberries
They're better than strawberries because you don't have to replace the plants every three years. They're better than raspberries because they don't spread like crazy and they don't need pruning every year.
And they taste great.
Many varieties can be grown in well-watered pots and many have fall color.
They also do just fine when the tomato year is bad.
Just be sure to water frequently. Blueberries love water in summer.
I put mine on drip irrigation this year and our harvest quadrupled.
Echinacea
I bought my first cone flower, a bright pink, last year and abused it in a tiny 1-gallon pot for an entire year, just barely keeping it alive.
I put it in the ground this past fall and it is thriving, even next to a patch of aggressive mint.
It has been blooming since June, I swear, and it just keeps going and hardly needs deadheading. I highly recommend it.
It's a Great Plant Pick for a reason.
What did you grow this year that is still doing well?
Most recent Mudrakers posts
- Annuals put on a show May 15
- Home-grown tomatoes May 8
- Time to plant annuals May 1
- Itching to plant tomatoes early? Here's some help April 27
- Learn to grow Japanese maples April 18
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