Mama Gone Green is a blog dedicated to raising happy children and reducing our impact on the Earth. My name is Taryn and I am the mother of 2 young kids and an environmental studies instructor at a community college in Portland, Oregon. Please join me as I journey through life as a mama, teacher, knitter, photographer, gardener, and environmentalist!

Saturday, July 16, 2011

A Garden Update

We are having another year of a not-so-great garden. I would like to blame it all on the weather (and the fact that we have had no heat... this morning was in the low 60's and raining), but I think it is partly due to my gardening inexperience. Our plants seem to be struggling to really get growing, and I think I didn't add enough compost to the soil. I did add some compost around each seed/plant that I planted, and our yard is covered with clover, which adds nitrogen to the soil, but I think it needed a bit more love. most of our yard is on a relatively steep slant, and my guess is that a lot of our topsoil is coming off in the winter rains. I think next year I need to add a lot more compost... maybe even till compost into large patches. Anyways, I am enjoying what we are harvesting, and hope that we get enough sun around here for our tomatoes and squash to produce before fall rolls around!

Here is one of out teeny heirloom tomatoes.... Fruit is ripening, but the plants are a fraction of the size we normally have...

The world's saddest pepper....

Our squash are just beginning to blossom...

Our plum tree, which normally at this time of year, is drooping with more plums than us and all of our neighbors can enjoy. This year, not a one. This same thing happened 3 years ago, and I really am clueless as to what is going on. My only guess is that the tree flowered while it was still too cold for the bees to come out and pollinate? Does anyone know more about this? A thorough google search proved to be no help....

But, I can't complain too much. We had an overabundance of snap peas (which we are now letting go to seed in our first seed-saving experiment), we are eating carrots, beets, and chard from our garden, as well as a variety of fresh herbs. Our potatoes are coming along well and we have strawberries and blueberries to snack on. And, our calendula is happy as can bee!


How is YOUR garden?
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4 comments:

  1. Wish I could send some of our heat your way! Our tomatoes are also small this year. What should be two pound fruit are rippening when they're still tiny.

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  2. no garden yet, and i'm sure when we do start one (in another move or two), i will struggle. i don't think of myself as having a brown thumb, but for some reason, things--like basil and my birthday orchid--are not thriving...

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  3. Just stumbled upon you blog and your garden looks great to me! We live in drought stricken New Mexico, so our garden this year consists of a thin strip of tiny pepper plants, some reluctant tomatoes, and three watermelon plans that haven't grown more than a few inches in two months. Our mint plant is the only thing really thriving. The garden still gives me tremendous pleasure though, even if it doesn't fill our plates. Keep growing!

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