Tuesday Garden Party- Corn and Beans Finally

Here we go with another edition of the Tuesday Garden Party and I'm happy to announce I planted all my beans, cucumbers, pumpkins and one bed of corn today. Between the rainy cold spring and all the graduation activities we've had at our house, I'm about two weeks later than I like to be. That's OK, though, I'll just get them a little later, but I will get them and that's the important thing!

This is right after I planted four rows of corn. This is an early hybrid called Quickie that should produce small ears in about 60 days.

Wondering about the wire over the top? That's in case the birds think they'd like a little corn and to deter the neighborhood cats from using it for you-know-what. Corn has notoriously spotty germination, so I sow it thicker than the spacing calls for (and thin later if needed), and cover it to protect it from birds and cats.

And I won't have to weed this all season except to hand-pull a weed or two once in a while. It's true, have a look at my no-till post if you want a little reminder of my method. :-)

This bed has two types of pumpkins, pole beans, storage (dry) beans, and pickling cukes. I grow the cucumbers on a trellis. They have to be tied and trained up it, but the cukes are straighter, cleaner and much easier to harvest.

It's hard to see in this picture where everything is, so I'll have to do an update in about a month or so when the plants start taking off.

I had to throw this picture in because this was one of the project areas of our backyard that we (and by we, I mean Brian and the kids...) have been working on the past week to have it done before the graduation party we had here last Saturday.

The previous owners had built the fence eight feet in from the shed you can just see in the upper right corner. It ended where the line of plants is now and there was a gate there where the mulched bed starts. Why? It's a mystery to us, but it was this little eight foot section behind the fence that we called "no man's land" because it didn't get mowed and a lot of things ended up being thrown back there.

So last year we moved the fence to the far right and laid black plastic down to attempt to kill the masses of weeds.

And there it sat. For. A. Year.

Sometimes it's good to plan a big party- otherwise I wonder if we'd still be looking at a huge swath of plastic.

I have plans for the gravel area which I no doubt will be sharing with you at some point. Just don't hold your breath, we move a bit slowly around here.

Now it's your turn: