I finally snapped a few long shots of the backyard garden this morning. Here’s what’s happening in amongst the weeds…

I replaced last year’s single row of cinder blocks surrounding the herb garden with this new wood box planter. My plan is to do the same thing, reversed, to the south, and then some plain long boxes to create a square. Inside the square, under the big tree, will be…something. I glider, or a table and some chairs, or a little fountain. I’m planning on sticking to a mix of herbs and flowers, and am planting each section so there is at least one thing on every level that is evergreen. I’m tired of looking at bleak and dead all winter.

This is the view walking out the back door of the garage. At top, Italian oregano and sweet potato vine, and a lovely little iridescent gazing ball I bought at the farmer’s market. The lower section contains some rosemary babies, three kinds of basil, and more oregano.

On the other side, the middle section contains lantana and santolina. The lower section is filled with purple autumn sage, purple culinary sage, germander, lavender, and more rosemary babies. I’m rooting rosemary plants wherever there’s space, because they seem to be dying off once they get about three feet around. Eventually, I’ll figure out what the heck I’m doing wrong.

On the other side of the yard is the vegetable garden. So far, three 8×4 foot beds that are about two feet high. I may do three 4×4 beds in front of these next year, so I can do some rotating, and some successive plantings. Also, I’d like to add some strawberries.

In the first bed are zucchini and yellow squash. These were very slow getting out of the gate this year. The plants seemed to stay small and struggle for several weeks before they finally took off. I swear, that big zucchini at the back left was a spindly little sprout last week.

Now, the same zucchini is covered with blossoms, and there are already a few squash coming along nicely. One of the yellow squash is also starting to produce as well.

In the second bed are cherry and roma tomatoes, green beans and eggplant, plus a couple of chives plants I moved from the old herb bed, which will eventually move into the next wood box section of the new herb garden. This bed is pretty overcrowded right now.

The romas have produced a ridiculous number of fruit already, and this morning was the first time I saw any of them turning red. I can’t wait to start eating fresh tomatoes, and it looks like this year’s crop will outdo last year’s, which was pretty plentiful.

The cherry tomatoes have also produced a ridiculous number of fruits. I’ve been picking three or four a day.

Last year, I planted a handful of green beans, and they were pitiful. This year, I planted the whole package of seeds, close together to shade the tender plants. They’re doing great, and I’ve already harvested a good sized bowl of beans.

The three eggplant just started to flower this week. I think I really just grow these because they’re so pretty, both in flower and fruit, and not because I’m a big fan of eggplant. Perhaps I’ll find a better way to prepare them this year.

In the last bed are cucumbers, acorn squash and some pots of mint moved from the herb garden. I’m thinking the mint may go into the trash soon, since the clay pots cracked over the winter, and the soil in them is really too hard for humus loving mint. The plants have been small and spindly ever since I planted them, and since I need new pots and new dirt, I might just as well spent another five dollars to start with big, lush, healthy plants again. I originally planted three hills of burpless cukes. All three struggled for weeks, with two of them finally taking off, and one turning yellow and dying. I pulled the dead one out, and added two hills of lemon cukes, which are holding their own so far. The acorn squash went in late, so they’re just seedlings at the moment. Three out of four hills seem to have sprouted several plants, while one is still bare. I forced myself to plant these later, so I wouldn’t have ten tons of every kind of squash all at once.

That’s it for today. I’m hoping to shoot the front yard progress later in the week.