Vegetable Garden

So I just finished planting everything in my vegetable garden today. It’s so nice to look out my bedroom window and watch it grow all summer long.

I planted my early vegetable last month- snow peas, sugar snaps, broccoli, & cauliflower. We had an extremely cold Spring here in New Hampshire and I swear my vegetables have barely grown!!
My snow peas are only a few inches tall at this point and I only had a couple of sugar snaps even break through…a disappointing start to my 2020 garden.,.

planning

Before I started planting my vegetable garden this season I diagrammed a quick plan on where to plant my veggies. It’s important to rotate your crops from year to year to fend off disease that can over-winter in the soil.

This year I am only planting veggies my family likes to eat; last year I planted things that also looked attractive but my garden was overcrowded.

You can see how this garden space came about in this blog post.

planting

My garden was rototilled earlier this Spring and I have already added compost into the soil before I started planting.

I work some organic vegetable fertilizer into each hole before I pop the plants in.

I’ve had these vegetable ladders for over a decade to support my tomato and pepper plants and they were worth every cent! They’ve held up so well. You can check them out on Gardener’s Supply Co., they are a great New England company and always have the best products for your garden.

I’ve had problems with cutworms destroying my young tomato plants in the past. It only had to happen once that now I always take the time to protect my plants when they first go in. Gardeners sometimes use a cut up toilet paper or paper towel roll to place around the base. I just cut the bottom off the plastic pots and when the plant gets bigger and stronger I can clip it off.

My cucumber seeds get sown directly into my garden. I’m growing 3 different varieties this year on 3 cucumber trellises ( the trellises are also from Gardener’s Supply Co.). I over seed then thin out the plants once they start growing.

Growing vegetables vertically takes up less space but also keeps them off the ground. You will never go back to letting your cukes crawl across your garden after you try a trellis! It’s so easy to find the ripe ones because they are hanging down.

I put in 5 pepper plants this season; 3 different bell peppers and 2 jalapeno. Honestly, I’ve never had great luck with bell pepper plants here in New Hampshire. I usually only get a couple on each plant. Last year I had one big pepper that was almost as large as the plant; but I keep trying!! Jalapenos do really well here and I always get a good crop. I cut up and freeze most of my bounty to use in chili over the winter.

I have everything planted! I’m growing sweet peas and green beans on the garden obelisk.

protecting

Last summer I had the worst weed problem in my garden; it was so discouraging! This year I decided to put down Scotts ultimate landscape fabric that I grabbed at Walmart last weekend when I was buying out their garden center (LOL, but you should have seen my husband’s face when I rolled my carriage full of flowers out!!) I bought this one because it said it let’s all the water and nutrients get down to the plants but will keep the weeds out.

We covered the fabric with fresh grass clippings. I need to mention that my husband helped me lay down the fabric and put down the clippings…because he said “don’t forget to tell everyone on your blog that I helped” 😂

Fingers crossed that this keeps the weeds at bay this year!!

Now, I just need some warm weather and sunshine to take over and get this garden growing! I will update it’s progress through the summer.