Murray the Office Dog is a joy, but he also likes to eat things like bricks (pictured above) and rocks and, well, plants. This is why we had to build a fence around our backyard vegetable garden. Our dear Murray just has his own horticultural ideas, and they usually involve pulling plants up by the roots and shaking them for all they’re worth. As you can imagine, this sort of behavior is not conducive to a productive growing season.
Thus the fence…which our clever pup has also figured out how to open…which is why it is now fastened shut with a vise.
Our dear Murray, and all that.
The luxury of this fence (if you can call it that), is that it has given me a way to claim more turf for planting whatever I want. So my daughter and I have been working really hard on filling in the space, when we haven’t been telling Murray to kindly remove his meaty boy paws from the top of the bloody fence. We’ve nicknamed it the Secret Garden, because we have romantic notions of being able to hide in there once we’re done turning it into the lush and productive plot of our dreams.
Here’s a taste of what we’ve been up to…
This morning’s radish haul.
Someday when this little bud grows up, it will be a red bell pepper.
A pea pod. These normally don’t stick around for long, as my girl eats them straight from the vine.
I’m pretty excited about these. These little spikes will grow up to be haricots verts someday.
Blueberries!
Looking forward to the day when this vine sprouts its first cucumbers.
Kale. Of course.
Tomatoes. I would love it if they would hurry up and ripen.
Not pictured: wild garlic, carrots, strawberries, potatoes (for obvious reasons), vidalia onions, leeks, lavender, okra, canteloupe, watermelon, black-eyed peas, butternut squash and various herbs.
I’m really excited that I’ve been able to get my garden back up and running and will be updating here and there with the garden’s progress and how and what I’m cooking with what it yields. I’ll also be sharing the ups and downs of what it takes to keep this going, through heat and through fierce red ant invasions (we had a massive one two weeks ago) and changing seasons. I hope you enjoy those stories!
In the meantime, if you are looking to start or maintain a vegetable garden of your own, here are two books that should have at the ready:
* Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew
and
* Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte
Do you have any other book recommendations, or gardening resources, etc that you like? Please let me know in comments.
