I thought I’d start a Monday series to track my garden progress.  I actually can’t believe how much difference just 7 days makes when it comes to plant growth! Today I’ll start from the beginning and get us all caught up.

In mid-April my parents came for a visit and my dad was wonderful enough to do several little (or big..) projects.  A couple of those were to build me a third garden to house my tomato plants as well as build me a new open compost system!

May 23 I plant my tomatoes into the garden.  If you want to read about their growth from seed go here.

This year I’ve really expanded my horizons beyond vegetable gardening.  I’m now dabbling into flowers! I’ll admit I’ve spent a lot of money because I just can’t resist!  I was gifted this beautiful Columbine by a sweet friend of mine who I work with, I will cherish it forever! I put it in my front yard which needs a lot of work and the Columbine was a great step in the right direction.  I also have two hanging baskets and two planters (I’ll do a separate post on them because they are homemade and wonderful!) in the front and two hanging baskets in the back.  I bought a couple Dahlia plants to put in the garden – I’m really hoping I can attract enough bees to do the fertilizing that will need to be done.

This is the seed stash I started with this year.  I planned out the gardens trying to be strategic in placing plants which like each other close together.

I planted all my seeds as well as my peppers on June 3.

I started my peppers from seed at the same time as my tomatoes and kept them inside for a little bit longer than the tomatoes since they are a bit less hardy.   I was nervous that the growing season wouldn’t be long enough to get good fruit so I planted three of the plants into a pot placed beside the garden that I can bring indoors if need be, and one plant in the garden.  It’s more of an experiment than anything this year – I have no knowledge whatsoever in growing peppers.

Things were already starting to look great on June 8.

I bought some shims from Home Depot and made these cute little garden markers.  They really add to the overall look of the garden.

June 13 I noticed my first pepper! I was ecstatic!  I also noticed the tomatoes blooming and everything else growing wonderfully.

This was June 18.

June 24

I kept seeing buckets of potatoes on Pinterest so I thought I would try it out this year.  They are really thriving in the bucket, I’m hopefully that I’ll have a huge amount of potatoes at the end of the year.

I had my first harvest on June 27 of baby kale and spinach.  I prefer them to be smaller plants when I’m using them in smoothies and salads.

This was June 28, the growth is really noticeable!

Notice the tomato plants which are quickly growing into a forest! I had to anchor them to the side of the garden to get them to stand up straight.  I’m definitely brainstorming new ways to stake the tomatoes next year. 

July 3! When I first compared the June 27 to the July 3 picture I was flabbergasted! My tomatoes really started to take off.  The rest of the garden is also growing so well!  I also used some tomato plant food on this day.  Take a look at those potatoes too!

Well that’s the garden beginning until now.  I’m really looking forward to these weekly posts and to be able to document the progress! So far it’s leaps and bounds ahead of last years garden!