Suburban Garden Update 5/09

Last weekend, I journeyed back home to Pennsylvania for Mother's day.  While there I had a chance to check on my suburban garden.  My father had been doing an incredible job in expanding and maintaining the bio-intensive Garden based on the plans that I had drafted in March.  Everything is in full bloom.  In the picture, my father is standing proudly over the expanded garden! :D

The Cabbages are interplanted with rows of Green Onions and Garlic.  Potoatoes were coming on strong in 2 of the Garden Beds.  And 4 tomato plans were growing in one of the newly created garden beds.  All appeared to be growing extremely well.

Garden Bed 5 had Summer Squash seedlings catch-cropped with fast growing Shanghainese Lettuce.  The Lettuce will mature and be harvested prior to the maturing of the Summer Squash plants, thus allowing 2 harvests in one season!

2 Garden Beds used for growing potatoes last year are planted with Snow Peas and Sugar Snap Peas respectively.   Both beds are doing very well with the pea seedlings starting to climb up the bamboo trellis.  The Peas will absorb nitrogen from the atmosphere and fix it into the soil, thus improving long term soil fertility.

Now on to the perennials!  7 of the 8 asparagus plants that I had put down last Spring have made it to their 2nd year!  Now they are the size of small bushes and growing vigorously.  We have to wait one more year before beginning to harvest the asparagus shoots.  But even now, I can see fully grown asparagus shoots that are perfectly edible from each bush!

Both of the apple trees are flowering.  The pruning of errant branches several months ago seemed to have done these trees much good.  So far, I haven't seen any signs of fungus or pest upon the apple leaves.  In anycase, to ensure maximum survivability this year, I coughed up some hard currency and bought a bottle of Organic Pest Spray.  Basically it's a mixture of Garlic, Cottonseed, and Rosemary oils which drives the bugs crazy! :P

Finally, we come to the berries.  Despite our failed attempts to transplant berries last year, my father has bravely tried again this spring, with great success!  He transplanted another 3 blackberry bushes, 2 of them died, but 1 survived and appears to be thriving.  My father lined the berry bush with a lithic mulch in the same fashion as the ones I had laid in around the apple trees.  We need to keep our fingers crossed and pray to the Gardening Gods for success!