Dirt, Determination, and Deeper Roots: The Expansion Continues

Welcome back friends! If you have been following along, you have seen a lot of progress in transforming my growing space. So far, I have expanded my main vegetable area and opened the space up to more sunlight by removing a tree from the space. I also added a raised bed outside the vegetable garden to add lingonberries.

This May has been cooler than past years. While cooler temps prevented earlier planting, it allowed me time to continue the expansion - pulling weeds, bed clean-up, planning where new plants are going to go, etc. If you were to step into the yard during this time you would have seen a chaotic mess of half finished cleanup, bags of soil, and just the normal process of gardening - a beautiful “mess” of the expansion process! I also had a table full of plants to get into the ground or raised beds.

In addition to the vegetable and fruit garden upgrades, I had an area for flowers that needed work. I had a few tulips in this space but also a blank canvas where nothing was planted. I scattered some wildflower seeds there last year to see what would grow and come back this year. Only a few of the seeds grew and came back.

Since I still have a pretty much blank canvas, I needed to find something to fill the space. I found some white tulips - a color I don’t have right now - and got them right into the ground. I also found some hyacinths to add for spring color. Both of these additions should come back next year with no issues, adding to the garden story.

The space seen in the picture below is part of the flower expansion area. The orange flowers are from the wildflower seeds I scattered last year. On the right side of this bed is where I added one of the white tulips and a hyacinth. There is still quite a bit of space available. This bed is a work in progress.

Expansion and additions to the tulip bed.

Every year I go into the garden with the intention of getting all the planting done in one day, but so far have not been able to accomplish that - haha! I love to “rescue” plants, those that look like they are not going to make it. This is how I ended up with the new tulips and hyacinths - they were in pretty sad shape, but I had to give them a try.

In addition to the expansion and light created by removing the tree, I added two new Greenstalk planters to the main garden to make use of vertical growing space. The gallery below shows a new flower addition - Speedwell (left), the Concord grapes starting their growth this year (middle), and one of the Greenstalks planted out with peppers, basil, and some companion flowers. (Keep an eye out for these peppers - they’re destined for some Seasonal Harvest items later this year!)

Every growing season is not without challenges and this year is no different. Our cooler temps earlier in May have transitioned to hot and dry. This is my first challenge since I did not get my rain barrels out while we were getting rain in April.

The second challenge I am facing are the critters that like to dig and look for treasures or find the treasures they buried last fall. Every day I have to check on the beds to make sure nothing is uprooted. So far, I’ve had three beds that seem to be favorite spots for the hunt and one bed that has not been touched! My garlic bed has escaped the paws of the squirrels! This is sparking an idea for this fall and next years growing season. I will unveil that plan when we get to the fall prep though.

What challenges and changes are you facing this year? Let’s chat and see how we can help each other. Drop a comment below to join the conversation.

With heart,

Fanny