My lettuce garden & wildflower haven

In my yard, I make sure to avoid mowing down the milkweed. Now, the milkweed stands growing tall and will be flowering soon. From what I've heard, milkweed is the only food source for the Monarch butterfly, so every year, I'm sure to keep the patch of Milkweed growing just for them.

Also, my patch of wildflowers are doing great. I may fertilize them again soon, but I'm glad that they're growing so that it attracts bees and other insects in the hopes that the insects will pollinate the flowering vegetables or fruit trees.

Grapes getting bigger

Basil

This garden is different from my other I showed you in my last post. It is my permaculture garden which I continue mulching and layering with compost. In the  garden beds here, I planted an abundance of radish, many varieties of lettuce, cilantro, spinach, arugula--and now most of these plants are going to seed. The lettuce will be flowering soon too. I have continued to pick the lettuce for salads, sandwiches, and wraps. I have been giving lots of lettuce away too, but as mentioned, the lettuce will be flowering soon and I will not be able to pick it any longer because it will taste old and bitter.

Cilantro and lettuce

Yarrow flower 

Onion flowers

Lots of onions flowering 

Here I have some strawberries growing too amongst the lettuces but animals are eating them.

Strawbery plant

In my pots, I have squash, melons and tomaotes. I have struggled with these though because of animals digging up plants and making holes. It has been a constant struggle this year with animals, unfortunately.

Today, I composted around the tomatoes  in pots. I brought some pots that animals ate the plants from to my apartment to transplant tomatoes in. It looks pretty good! And I brought compost from my home garden to my apartment garden for the tomatoes!

Tomatoes in pots for apartment garden

Already getting big!

Rain flooding the garden but helping the berries

The rain has been constant here in northern Kentucky To the point it's flooding one of the gardens and the corn is laying over. At the same time, the rain is bringing on more blueberries and early blackberries.

Picked these this morning too 

Overall the rain is good for most things, especially the potatoes in the grow bags that are done flowering. I worry though the potatoes in the ground are getting drenched.

Potatoes fell over from the hard rain 

The beans are making the garden look like a jungle 

The rain has made it in impossible to hoe out the weeds 

The corn fell over from the hard rain too 

The squash like the extra rain for sure 

Tomatoes getting tall 

As the rain sets in at the beginning of summer, the flowers are showing themselves beautifully too.

Three Sisters method vertical trellis gardening

Corn, squash, beans, potato garden

Beans on fencing

Beans on trellis, potatoes in grow bags

Potato grow bags

Potatoes in tilled garden

Tomato bucket garden

Cilantro harvest for bean & rice burritos 

Garden art sign + big blueberries fruiting + flowers

I painted this art sign last night as a new addition to the others placed around the garden. I make them with old pieces of recycled pallets.

The blueberry plants are doing good as I am babying them with mulch, compost and regularly watering them.

I have 10 blueberry plants growing together but I think only 7 are mature enough that they are fruiting. And they are fruiting quickly, with some already having big blueberries.

Other summer plants growing are the Irises and Hostas now. I wish they would take over this yard more aggressively considering it seems the ivy and invasive plants are taking over the yard instead. It's impossible to clean a hill side facing the road.... 

In my last post I said I had put posts around the tomatoes and peppers so I'll show you the rest of the garden I didn't show you in the last post. As you can see here the clay soil around the plants needs to be mulched with leaves.

Peppers

Tomatoes and basil

Early girl tomatoes

Watermelons sowed and needs mulched over clay soil