How Does Your Summer Garden Grow?

Summer arrives later this afternoon.  Those who have planted victory gardens this season have a good idea how they are going to do.

For my spouse and I, it's a mixed report.  First, the (hopeful) successes.

We community garden in Binghamton, New York, zone 5b. We've purchased plots in community gardens for the past thirty or so years (except for a few year stretch when the garden was discontinued and then relocated.)  Because of my back issues, I've been limited in gardening until this year, when our community garden (under new management) built more raised beds for those with physical limitations, and I was able to rent one.  Spouse maintains what I call the "main" garden, which is in the ground.

This is what "my" raised bed looked like yesterday.  Starting from the bottom of the picture and working up, you'll see zinnias, a cabbage plant, several rows of beans, yellow zinnias (more on them shortly) peppers, tomatoes, more cabbage, and eggplants.  The last four were purchased as starts.

In my spouse's main garden, potato plants.

Zahara Double Yellow Zinnias - not the best for cutting but I liked them

We grow zinnias in the community garden because, for some reason, we can't seem to grow zinnias at home from seed.  Don't ever feel guilty about growing ornamental flowers in a garden - they have their place, attracting beneficial insects and providing cut flowers (if you don't have allergies) for your table.

Onion plants are one of our most successful community crops - this was taken before a well deserved weeding.  I helped with this (using a portable bench) and am paying the price.  I'm writing this blog post with a heating pad on my back.

But we've had our shares of failures, too.  That's part of the gardening game.  Don't be discouraged when you have failures.

Weeds - at least one of us is there several times a week, and it's been a good year for them. 

Not shown - beans in the ground level garden - something nibbled on them and we have them under row covers right now. 

A first planting of carrots in the raised bed never germinated - might have dried out. (This is my first attempt with raised beds - perhaps three feet tall).  Cilantro - almost no germination, perhaps for the same reason.

We tried to grow cabbage from seed in the raised bed - something ate all but one of the seedlings. We had to buy plants.

We are trying to grow more plants at home in pots (we don't have a lot of room in full sun, plus we have a bad groundhog problem.  Mixed results.  Something (squirrels, I think) loves to try to roll around in the pots.  We lost our swiss chard and parsley from seed that way.

But the cucumbers (bottom of photo) are good so far.   So are my two tomato plants - one called Fourth of July and the other a patio variety.

So, it is work.  A lot of work.

Advice?  Don't plant and forget.  Spend time each day with your plants, if you can, so you can identify problems early on and take action.

Have you tried to garden for the first time this year?