Garden Journal Update - May 2022!

Gardening with The Anarchist's!

Time can really fly when you stay busy, can't it? Well, I don't know about all you out there, but personally, it was a busy couple of weeks here at our house!

I work a full time job at the local garage door manufacturing company, so most days I'm up about 3:30 am, work from 6 am to 5 pm, then finally get home around 5:30 pm to start spending time with the family and do all my regular house chores before putting Junior to bed around 8:30 or 9 pm (usually falling asleep myself in the process lol). So after doing that all week long, my weekends usually consist of playing with the kids, grocery shopping, chores, and of course gardening!

However, these last few weeks have been a bit more hectic than usual. Mixed in there with our daily routine, there were some legal matters to attend to (thanks to my last bout with alcohol), and we've had some personal issues going on as well (if you follow my personal blog you know what's been going on). Then, on top of all that other stuff, I decided I was going to try my hand at creating some NFT art, as a way to help keep myself busy. Bah, talk about biting off more than I can chew!

But even though we've had all this personal stuff going on and in the way, my family has still been really supportive of my writing, and keeps encouraging me to continue the adventure I've had here on Hive :)

_{C'mon Dad, just get on with the update! We want to hear about the gardening!}

Okay, okay; since Junior seems so adamant, let's dig on in to this week's update!

The May Update!

It's been almost a month now since my first Garden Journal! I wanted to make a post for the past few weeks, but with our personal matters going on, it wasn't quite feasible for me to do :( But, now we're back at it and able to resume (kind of) a normal-ish routine!

That first week we had a small heat wave that dried out the ground pretty bad, leaving nasty cracks in the soil! I think this is partially because our little Mantis Tiller wasn't able to dig deep enough, and the only reason I think that is because the half of the garden that was tilled with a larger tiller didn't crack nearly as bad, but I'm not entirely positive. So, I got to work watering every night, letting our little beauties suck up all the water they could!

I don't know if I'm doing something right, got a green thumb, or it's purely just beginner's luck, but look at the growth on all of these plants!

_{The first comparison pictures of the lettuce and spinach were taken just a week apart. The others were taken periodically throughout the last 2 weeks!}

But I assure you, that first week wasn't spent just weeding tho..oh no!

We started making plans about when to start planting our hot weather plants, and I've been making mental notes and preparations for how to improve the garden as a whole!

First thing first, I needed to weed the unused (so far) half of the garden. Just look at all those weeds and clumps of grass! Heavens to Betsy, I absolutely could not let this stand! Seizing the ol' reliable hoe from the tool shed, I quickly got to work!

_{HOLY MOTHER OF WEEDS, PLANTMAN!}

Not 5 minutes after starting, ol' reliable broke, leaving us to get the rest of the job done by hand! Wielding the head of the hoe in one hand, the other, ready to scoop and pick out weeds, we got to work once again. It took awhile, but with most of the section completed, it was time to take a break, and let the midday sun dry out the rest of the unused patch to weed later!

While taking a break from the garden, Murty and Junior arrived home, and Fairy and Bug came for the weekend from their mothers just a few hours later! We quickly decided to round up the gang and head out on our weekly grocery trip. After heading to Rural King, once again, during our run to town, we bought a new hoe (a replacement handle was more expensive, so I just bought a new one; but I am determined to fix that old girl!), a few extra packets of seeds, a handful of redwood stakes, a new hand trowel to replace the broken hand-me-down (yes, yet another broken tool in our inventory), and a few new fertilizers!

After a week of weeding the rest of the garden, we had planned on planting the rest of our plants this past weekend. However, mother nature had other plans for us. After a rainy Saturday, a very wet and muddy Sunday, we were slowly able to start planting warm weather crops!

Starting with the jalapeno peppers, we placed 1 seed per square in 4 different sections, right in between our asparagus plants in the first row! Moving on to the bell peppers, we planted 1 seed per square in 6 separate sections in between the asparagus in the second row.

_{I think this guy was a Roma Tomato Seed, but all of the pepper and tomato seeds were planted this way, and most of the holes got 2 seeds in them!}

We did end up planting 2 more squares of spinach, but then moved right on to the tomatoes. Starting with cherry tomatoes, we planted 1 seed per square in a total of 10 sections, 5 going in between the lettuce and spinach, and 5 more going in the row after.

Right next to those, we filled out the rest of the row with 4 sections of Roma Tomatoes! We wanted to plant all of our warm weather plants at once, but given the amount of time we had before we had to start dinner we knew we wouldn't be able to get them all done. I do feel like we may have been a little late in the season to sow the seeds directly outside, but I'll definitely be taking that into account next year!

After the tomatoes, we decided to plant more potatoes! This time we planted white potatoes and cut the tubers up, instead of planting whole, to maximize plant production! This time though, I dug a trench and threw the taties in!

Unfortunately, we had to quit for the day after the taties, but we were able to get more done periodically throughout the week!

After battling rain for the majority of the week, I am finally proud to say that we officially finished planting all of our warm weather crops!

As I said in my first garden log, I had space between most of our rows ready for our new plants, and almost completely filled the whole garden!

In the row after the tomatoes, I decided to plant some zucchini! So in the first row after the tomatoes, I planted 1 zucchini, 4 Roma tomatoes, another zucchini, followed by 4 Rutgers tomatoes, and finished off that row with one last zucchini! We love fried zucchini, so we decided to plant a full row immediately after the intercropped row!

We did get a few carrot sprouts (one shown above), and definitely not where I originally thought I planted them, but seeing the sprouts made me hopeful, so we planted 2 more rows! :)

With only 3 beet plants that sprouted, we decided to try and plant one more square, late or not, right next to the others! Hopefully they take off, but if not, it will be a good learning experience for the summer season, and we still have the fall season left to experience and experiment with as well!

From here on out, I kind of changed my planting pattern a little bit, and decided to plant in straight rows, instead of how I originally planted, just to save some time.

So, we planted 1 complete row of cucumbers that went in right after the row of peas and beets, digging a small trench (so much easier than my first plan of attack), we sowed 1 seed every foot or so, then covered and lightly tamped the dirt down!

After that, we decided to do another 2 full rows of onions, right after our second set of potatoes that we just planted!

Moving on from those quickly planted rows, we decided to plant a row of eggplant. Using the same trenching method, we dropped a seed in every foot or so and then covered it with dirt and tamped down.

The section we had separated for tomatoes was definitely not big enough, so we planted 2 rows of Beefsteak tomatoes, and one more row of Rutgers tomatoes after that! Whew, our garden is starting to get a little full now!

_{PlantMan and his ever faithful sidekick, GardenGirl (my daughter Bug) getting to work filling the garden, in hopes to have a bountiful season!}

Tomatoes in place, Bug and I moved on to garlic and okra in the next row! I planted 1 garlic bulb on the end, followed by 5 okra plants, and finished the row with one more garlic bulb! We're not too worried if the garlic doesn't take off, but we didn't want the bulbs to go to waste!

By this time, the sun was starting to set and dinner was done, so we took a quick break to eat. Immediately after, we went back out to finish up, determined to FINALLY get our full garden planted.

It was finally time for corn and melons :)

I decided that I was going to intercrop them, in hopes to keep the weeds at bay, and see how that worked for our first attempt! So, we planted one complete row of corn (about 15 total seeds I believe) then moved on to a row of watermelon.

After the watermelon, we planted another full row of corn, followed by:

One full row of honeydew,
Another row of corn,
One complete row of cantaloupe,
Another row of corn,
One more row of watermelon (one of our favorites if you couldn't tell),
And finally, 2 more rows of corn to end the planting for this season!

I have to apologize for the length of this post, it really should have been broken into 2 parts I think, but given the time I've been away, I had to give a full update! I'm also starting to set myself some more realistic goals with my writing, so hopefully my updates will be able to be published a little more often than what I've been able to do so far!

Other than the length of the post, what do you guys think?! Is there anything in particular you think I could or should do differently? Is there anything that I'm doing that is just plain wrong? Leave your comments, questions or quandaries down below, and maybe I can start implementing some new techniques with your help and advice!

Well, I do believe that will do it for this update! Thank you all for stopping by and seeing how the garden is going! Don't forget to tune in next week for another (hopefully a little shorter too) update!

Stay Trippy, My Little Hippies! And have a great week!

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• All photos taken and edited using my trusty ol' Motorola Moto G Stylus
• Signature custom made and designed by @doze