A Walk Through My Garden

This morning started as any other with a cup of coffee, rambunctious little boy, and some hungry chickens. Once my son had breakfast and some cartoons, I headed out to tend to my chickens. The garden seemed to be glowing in all its beauty.

There is something special about the feeling you get when you look out at your garden and feel a sense of pride and joy from helping nurture it into its existence. Each plant cell radiating a pretty color, whether it be purple, green, or yellow.
Of course with every garden there is work and it will be perfect in it's imperfections as we are too. I have resisted burnout on weeding by restricting how often and how much I weed. Even with your own rules, it is not easy because of life changes, the amount of ground you are tending, and the weather.

My bell pepper plants are flowering and producing, but my banana pepper plant is still small. The smooth German kale plants are colossal. I can't imagine how big they'll get as they become taller and wider. The red Russian kale plants possess such an earthy purple color, it is truly a plant to be admired. Marigolds are blooming as I planted a shorter variety of marigolds after my experiences the year prior with marigolds that were 3 and 4 feet high.

Smooth German kale in between two marigolds on left.
Red Russian Kale on the right.

 

Zucchini

The zucchini plant has the widest coverage in the garden, but it was expected. It should shade some of the Swiss chard in a few weeks. My tactic in how I planted was to provide fair amounts of each vegetable but broken up into different parts of the garden. I have read articles and books on how it can help confuse pests and bugs so we'll see how it works.

Speaking of  pests, I have caught two rats and two chipmunks which I have relocated to other areas far away from my home and garden. Shout out to my father for giving me traps to catch them. The preferred bait has been chicken scratch and chicken feed so I'll be sure to catch a few more.

Ginger

A couple of plants have peaked my interest lately and they are ginger, ground cherries, and leeks. The ginger I planted came from the grocery store and was simple to grow. Before I decided to plant ginger, I let it develop buds or sprouts by placing it under grow lights. Once it sprouted, I cut it up into pieces with buds on each 2 inch long slice and soaked it into a glass of water for 24 hours before planting it into a pot a couple inches below the surface. For roughly one month I saw no action. I watered it as I watered any other plants in my screened-in porch and eventually it began to sprout. Can't wait to see it as it grows.

The ground cheery plants have grown significantly and each plant has a handful of fruit on it with little green capes.. The flowers before fruit are yellow and purple. The stem of the plant has a stunning purple streaking.
There are not a lot of videos on Youtube regarding ground cherries. People's description of the taste vary so much that I have no idea what they are going to taste like. The leeks I planted aren't very big, but they are getting taller and stronger judging by appearance. I look forward to sauteing them with some butter and garlic.

Tomato plants grow like any other weed in my backyard. I explain it to people, but I don't think other people understand the depth of the tomato plant infestation. For example...

Tomato in cracked concrete

I have to say that it is the best problem to have. If only my wife liked tomatoes.