Gardenin', gardenin'

I can't remember a time when I haven't gardened. As a kid, I helped my parents put in the vegetables each year and doted on the plants each day until they came to fruition. Not much has changed, except now I have my own garden to dote on. There's always a bit of heartache when things don't turn out (I'm looking at you, hybrid cucumbers that were eight dollars for five measly seeds), but such is life. Come mid-August when everything starts growing like crazy and the aphids decide to invade, I generally just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯   and that is that.

Anyway, I'll be posting a bunch of garden updates throughout summer, mostly about vegetables. (If I can't eat it, I can't be bothered! I'm sure that will eventually change though.) We live up in zone 3, so our growing season is pretty short. We had an unseasonably warm winter and spring due to El Niño, though, so I got wayyyyy too ambitious and started sowing some cool season veg (bok choy and radishes) on April 1st. 

The bok choy died a very early, miserable death, but most of the radishes survived. It was worth the few wasted seeds, I'd say!

Wee baby French radishes, harvested May 11.

My partner (we'll call him Randy, more on him later) and I also embarked on garden trellis version 2.0 this year. Last year, the internet quite poorly advised me that I could make a pole bean trellis out of sticks and twine - which ended up with the beans completely overtaking the poles (they didn't want to climb up the saggy twine) and toppling over the entire structure. I think this year's trellis will do alright:

Building materials: junk tree we cut down in the yard, chicken wire, plastic bottle rope (Randy made his own cutter.)

We didn't have a post hole digger, but we did get a pretty good workout that day!

It's a bit hard to see, but there are three sides to the structure and a canopy.

Fast forward a couple of months, and here we are! I'm super excited for the plants to start climbing up. Along the west end of the trellis (nearest the chain link fence) I've planted a couple of indeterminate tomatoes; along the length, pole beans; and finally there are some cucumbers on the other end. I've never trellised tomatoes or cucumbers before, but it seems to make sense... might as well make use of the vertical space:

Here are a few more pictures of what we've got growing:

Potatoes (red ones... Norland?), planted mid-April. Hoping to harvest a few early taters by July!

Speckled peas. We eat them as pea shoots rather than letting them pod - they grow quickly and are pretty pest-free.

Is kale passé yet? Whatever.

Radishes

Bok choy. Basically food for bugs. Not a good ROI, in my opinion!

Poor sickly zucchini... 

Gai lan (it's basically Chinese broccoli, but better!)

Nasturtium 

Chile de Arbol pepper. Leaving the plastic on them until July or so - I'll be surprised if it gives me anything!

Buttercrunch lettuce.

Marigold's smell awful (kind of like really skunky weed) - maybe that's how it deters pests?

 Phew - that was a lot of plant talk. It'll probably be mostly visual updates from here on in!

Green thumbs unite,
 - HD