Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

This is our third season with a garden. (Wow, I just had a "is this really our third summer in this house?!?" moment when I wrote that.) Our first year was fairly pathetic. Last year we had a little more success, mainly due to our use of an automatic watering system. This year, with any luck, we'll do even better and Audrey will get to taste the fruits and vegetables of our labor.

We didn't get off to a great start as this was a record breaking year for snow in Salt Lake City. We broke the record for latest measurable snow at the airport, with a good blanketing on the 24th of May. We had to replace a few damaged plants, but our record cold month of May meant what did manage to survive just didn't grow. However, the sun is now out and hopefully things will start filling out soon.

So, here's the quick tour of what we have. We have two rows of bush beans on the right, two rows of carrots on the top right, two rows of Walla Walla sweet onions along the top, some zucchini and yellow squash on the left. We have early girl tomatoes in a pot on the bottom, green tomatoes on the top, and Brandywine tomatoes in the middle. The cherry tomatoes don't have a cage on them because we're not sure the plant is going to make it. There are a couple of cucumber plants in the middle of the tomatoes, a big bunch of parsley on the bottom right, and a few pepper plants thrown in randomly (one jalapeno and one red bell). The rest of the pots have rosemary, chives, thyme, and basil. A few bricks to stand on, a stump for a good aerial view, and a few weeds round out this totally random garden.

This was definitely an experimental year - just to see what will even survive. I do enjoy all of what we planted, but I normally am most excited about the herbs. As soon as we live someplace with a growing season longer than 3 months, I definitely want to plant a huge herb garden. The onions, beans, carrots, and peppers are all new to us this year, so we'll see what happens!