Gardening Boise

I Love July (and August)

// August 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // Summer, Vegetables

It’s super hot in July and August in Southern Idaho and sometimes it can be a little unpleasant. But look at what it’s done for my garden:

I can’t believe how different it looks from just a month ago! I’ve harvested cucumbers, zucchini, one bean (haha) and the tomatoes are really starting to come in.

All of our hard work in the spring has been worth it. I knew it would be, of course, but sometimes its hard to remember to have patience and faith in Mother Nature.

Mid-season Lull

// July 21st, 2010 // No Comments » // Flowers, Summer, Vegetables

My garden has gone into low-maintenance mode; I just need to make sure the plants get enough water and they do the rest! The plants are starting to really flourish, some are starting to produce vegetables. I’m feeling a lot better about the general state of things, though there are still some things I’m worried about. My zucchini plant in particular hasn’t started growing any zucchinis yet, although it’s finally starting to grow well.

This year I have many more kinds of flowers growing throughout the yard. The cosmos and zinnias I planted as seeds have stayed alive and the cosmos started to bloom this week! I was beyond proud of them! I wasn’t sure they’d make it. I’m waiting on the zinnias to bloom!

And my containers are doing well, too. I replaced my pansies in my bench pot, they finally wilted. I planted Vinca and Angelonia and I’m excited to see how they do!

Progress

// April 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // Flowers, Seeds, Spring, Vegetables

My seedlings have come a long way already! I’ve already re-potted quite a few and made room for more in the tray for more. Here are some of the most recent pictures. I may update in the next day or so with more, since we rearranged our plant shelves.

And the pansies on the front porch.

Mid-August Update

// August 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // Containers, Flowers, Summer, Vegetables

I’m sorry for the delay in getting this photo up, I wanted to wait until I pruned back the tomato plant. It was growing like crazy and starting to take over a couple of the other plants. Here’s what my veggie garden looks like now:

My catnip plant in the pot is flowering and it looks so pretty! My cat loves the fresh leaves too, I will have to make sure to always have a catnip plant growing somewhere no matter what.

And finally the black-eyed Susans my mom brought from her yard. Hopefully I will have more next year, they really are pretty!

A Comeback Story!

// July 15th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Containers, Summer, Vegetables

One of my cucumber plants was looking really sad about a month ago. It wasn’t getting any bigger and I was worried it wouldn’t ever grow. So I dug up the poor thing and planted it in a container (the back left container in the photo - ignore the dead flower in the front, it has since been pulled up *sad*).

About 10 days later, it became evident that it wasn’t a problem with the plant.

And just 6 days after that, WHOA. Haha.

As of right now, it hasn’t gotten tons bigger but it has quite a few flowers so I think it’ll be OK. It will be interesting to see. I replaced this plant in the garden with another plant from the store, and that seems to be growing alright. We’ll see.

Almost Ready!

// July 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // Summer, Vegetables

One of our pepper plants has been doing very well, and this little pepper is almost ready. I’m not sure how to know when it IS ready to be picked, though.

And these tomatoes are looking good, too!

Garden Pests

// July 10th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Pests, Summer, Vegetables

Oh, the frustration of garden pests!!

First, we’ve got the gophers. They figured out how to get into the garden despite the chicken wire and are now stealing onions and chewing on other plants. Everyday or so I find a new place they’ve come up. I’m not sure what to do about them! We’ve tried the sonic deterrent devices, but apparently those don’t work anymore either.

And second, I now have TONS of earwigs (ewww) all over my zucchini and maybe my strawberries too. I found some advice for trapping them in water, so I put out a tin full of water (and bread, since they like yeast I guess) so we’ll check on that in the morning.

I did make some zucchini bread that turned out awesome, so that’s fun. I just hope I don’t lose the rest of my zucchinis to the bugs!!

Raised Bed Update

// June 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Vegetables

Our veggies are growing out of control! It’s awesome. I just realized the last pictures I posted were a long time ago, so these will be a lot different!

I think this zucchini may be almost ready to pick!!

Raised Vegetable Bed

// May 27th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Fruit, Projects, Spring, Vegetables

We have always had a small garden area in the backyard, and I had planned on planting a few things in it this year. Then we heard about a friend who was going to build a raised bed with chicken wire underneath, so the gophers wouldn’t ruin the garden. We have a problem with gophers so we thought we’d try this same idea! Thus began our biggest project yet.

Here’s what it looked like to begin with (after we dug up all the dirt and mixed it up a bit, and took out the surrounding bricks):

Then Jon built the retaining wall, laid down the chicken wire, mixed in “garden soil”, filled the bed and placed the path down the middle:

Next we extended it even more, and I planted everything (that took a lot of planning):

We will eventually extend the garden all the way to the fence (and plant some raspberries near the back corner), and next year maybe make it into an “L” shape against the wooden fence. Jon did AMAZING work on this, I really am impressed with how it turned out.

Here’s the final arrangement of the plants as of today (the existing area is 12ft x 8ft):

I just now noticed how different the hill behind our chainlink fence looks between the first pic and the last. If you go up that hill, there’s a canal there, and that’s where we get our irrigation water. The city maintains that area, and in the 2-3 weeks it’s taken us to complete our garden, they’ve mowed the grass behind the fence and it looks like its dried up a lot already. We need to get back there with a weed wacker to get what’s right up against the fence. I plan on planting enough stuff against the fence that eventually we won’t be able to see much back there!

We’ve Got Plants

// May 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // Flowers, Fruit, Spring, Vegetables

Today my Mom and I went plant shopping and had so much fun. We went to a nursery down the road and a larger chain store. I sigh wistfully every time I drive past the nursery, so it was about time that I went. I was not disappointed. What a great local resource!

We focused on plants for the food garden, a couple shade planters and the long back flower bed. I need to figure out what I want to plant in my bigger back flower bed, but that will be soon enough.

Altogether, we bought the following -

Veggies
Cucumbers
Zucchinis
Peppers (Red, Green and Yellow)

Fruit
Tomatoes (Sweet 100, Cherry, and Beefmaster)
Grapes
(will be re-planting strawberries)

Flowers
Moss Roses
Wave Petunias (will need to get more, the area I want to cover is bigger than I thought)
Regatta Sapphire (Lobelia)
Summer Wave (Torenia)
Catalina (Torenia)
Snowstorm (Sateria)
Walkabout Sunset
Asparagus Fern
Variegata
New Guinea Impatiens
Fiesta Ole Rose
Morning Glories (seeds)

I also bought a few different kinds of succulent plants; I will be posting a separate post showcasing those!

Finally, we also purchased a good number of pots/containers. I have some exciting ideas for those containers! Including a fountain and/or water garden.

Stay tuned for posts about our raised vegetable garden we’ve built this year!