With A Little Help From Our Friends

All apologies to Lennon/McCartney, but it is not hyperbole to say that this garden would not, could not, be where it is today without help from all of our friends, whether they donated their time and efforts, plants, or materials. Bill and Ann came by this morning and planted more tomatoes, peppers and cauliflower (shown here). We were also able to solve the Mystery of the Industrious Garden Elves from our last post. They were the ones who did such a good job with the cabbage, kohlrabi, mulching and leveling of the last two beds, and they bought a spray nozzle for the hose, until we get the irrigation system in place. Way to go, Bill and Ann! Here are some more pictures of their handiwork:



In front of the larger, bell pepper plants, there are several, much smaller, pepper plants of various hot varieties that were donated to the cause. If you look very closely, you'll see them there. We've got more hot peppers, including Jalapenos, that will go in this bed within the next couple of weeks, once they get stronger.



The big plants in the foreground are the last of the large tomato plants that were donated to us. They got to looking very sickly in the last couple of days, but we're hoping that they will perk up now that they're in the ground. In the background, are several donated cherry tomatoes.



A closeup of one of the cherry tomato plants.



The finished bed of cauliflower, along the NE fence. There is a matching bed of cauliflower along the NW fence, where the mailbox is. I know you can't see them in this picture, but trust me, they're there.

Frankie The Hammer disposed of the garbage yesterday and did another round of mowing. Jane and I spread the mulch last night, and put a list of ongoing tasks in the mailbox. So, if you head out to the garden, and you don't see anything obvious that needs to be done, just check the mailbox and the To Do List is in there. We also planted the yellow pear tomatoes:

This patch of green mulch is hiding several yellow pear tomatoes along the east fence. You can see the cucumbers and acorn squash in the background.



More yellow pears along the NW corner of the garden. They are bordered by onions to their south, and cauliflower along the fence to their east. If you've never had a yellow pear tomato, they are excellent in salads:)

So, now we're about 90% planted! The only seedlings left to put in the ground are the various hot peppers, and possibly some basil--but the basil doesn't look very good, so we may scrap those. We've still got some things to seed directly, and we'll end up splitting the last miscellaneous tomato bed to do that, and possibly the pepper bed, but I think we have enough pepper plants to fill that bed. Obviously, we've still got plenty of ground to mulch (which needs to be done on an ongoing basis, hint, hint), and we still need to layout the irrigation system, but the majority of the HARD work is done.

Those two flats of leftover cabbage plants are still sitting outside the garden fence, by the mailbox. If somebody (or several somebodies) would pick them up and plant them in their own garden, that would be great. It would be a real shame to have to throw them out.