Front Yard Gardens – Progress Update

Everything we planted in our front yard gardens, is really growing!  We wanted to give you a progress update.

In our last post, we shared with you the very beginnings of our front yard transformation.  We planned out 3 gardens, built 3 garden beds, had loam delivered, filled the beds with the loam, and got our strawberry plants planted all in mid-May.

At the end of May, after the threat of frost had past, we planted all of the vegetable and flower plants in the beds.   I did not take photos of the extensive work we did that day along the way, because frankly, I was covered in earth and sweat, and wasn’t about to touch my camera. : )

Here’s a photo of our front yard now, with the 3 garden beds. I think it’s a dramatic improvement to the ‘blahness’ it was, already!  Don’t you?  We even have some green weed/crabgrass growing in our dirt where the driveway was extended!  Since we don’t have plans to plant grass anytime soon, we’ll take anything green!   In the long run here, we’ll likely be putting in more  gardens, little walkways, maybe a small tree or 2 ….who knows what.  So planting grass at this point is not wise, when it mostly will be getting dug right up, soon enough.

Here’s a view from this angle, taken in mid-July.  I’m going to take you from garden to garden here and show you what we’ve got.  All of these photos coming up were taken in mid-July.

First on the far left, while acing our house with your back to the street, is our strawberry bed.    This is the garden that was done first, a couple of weeks before the others, because we could do that with the strawberries.  So I had done a couple of posts on how the plants and strawberries were coming along.   Rather then re-hash all of that, and re-post all of those photos, I’m just going to link you to those 2 posts.  They will open in their own window, so don’t worry about losing your spot here if you want to take a quick peek.

Strawberry Fields Forever

We Picked Our First Strawberry

Being the first year, the plants needed to get established, so we weren’t expecting an abundance of berries this year.  But we have high hopes, jam recipes, and many desserts on our agenda for next year!

This is the second garden from the left, next to the strawberry garden.  Or, the middle garden. : )

Aside from the flower, which I will get to a little later on, we have growing 4 varieties of tomatoes:   Beefsteaks, Better Boys, Early Girls, and Cherries.  We also have cucumbers in this bed.

Just a couple now-outdated tomato photos. More to come.

In our last bed here, 3rd from the left, closest to the drive-way, we have growing summer squash, zucchini, and green peppers. Plus the flowers.   I had read how helpful having certain flowers in your vegetable gardens were, to their growth and production.  They attract certain bees that help pollinate, as well as other certain insects that are good for the garden and good for keeping other harmfuls away.

I know that sounded a little vague, but I just didn’t want to get into the full explanation right now.  Besides, I’m not sure I can remember it ALL at the moment.   But I can tell you, that everything I knew at the time, and therefore did, seemed to have done exactly what it should , and it all worked!  So that’s got to count for something. lol

Here’s one of our first baby squashes.  I learned real quick that I can’t be all in the squash leaves, working around, with bare arms!  I got a rashes all over my arms almost instantly, and I was going nuts.  Not sure if that happens to everyone, or if I’m just sensitive?  But….I was more careful from there on out.  Kind of like my jalapeno chopping incident, but I’ll spare you the story on that. For now.  (But eventually, these dramatic complaints need to come out. So…be forewarned. : )

On the corners of some of the beds, I had planted cosmos, that have really grown beautifully.  We let them grow tall, and they are not only lovely, but really beneficial to the garden.

Pretty, huh?  We have this color, and white ones as well.

Mid-August….

These photos are now from mid-August, and things were looking great!

Look at all of the tomatoes growing!…

Here is one more shot of the middle garden, with the white Cosmos.

So as I said, the second half of this this post was mid-August.  A week later, so much had changed, and there were so many new surprises!  So up next, will be yet another garden post, to share with you how things developed from here.   I have discovered a new love of garden photography.  Shocking??  Probably not.

But soon, we’ll be heading inside the house for a bit, to show you a couple of new things that we’ve been doing in there.  I can’t wait to show you!!

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