Just a gardening fool.....

 July 11, 2025

We had quite the dumping of rain over Sunday night past. (July 6). This was the rain gauge Monday morning, and it continued to rain off and on for most of the day, so by the time the sun re-emerged on Tuesday, there was a solid 4 inches in the gauge.

The pond came back up to spring levels and a big puddle formed in the 'lawn' out front. Later on Monday, a pair of Sandpipers showed up at that puddle, and were enjoying wading and probing for whatever it was they were eating. I believe they were young or non-breeding Spotted Sandpipers, as they are the most common ones in Ontario. They were quite active and flighty, and it was hard to get a good look with the binoculars.

A drone shot of the garden beds taken first week of July.

Garden shed and compost bins are bottom right, pond is top right.
The Field Garden, at the bottom, is 35' X12' , the raised beds, all except two are 4' X 16', one is 4' X 14' and one is 3' X 16'. They all look so tiny, but that is pretty much 844 square feet of growing space. We leave wild areas all around the edges of the clearing un-mown, where there are milkweeds and goldenrod, and numerous other meadowy plants.

When we moved here in June of 2017, there were no gardens, so each one has been dug out by hand, or covered thickly with cardboard, left to fallow, then dug up the following summer. The Field Garden had to be dug over several times to get the Dogbane roots out. By the end of 2017, I had two raised beds and a small Field Garden. Each year I increased my growing area by a bed, or a square footage. There is another 4' X 12' bed down by the barn, which has my year's supply of storage onions growing, and the 5' x 25' perennial bed out front. Oh, and the asparagus patch, and the rhubarb patch, and the horseradish patch....Am I done diggin' yet??

The two round things in the Field Garden have a hill each of cantaloupes and watermelons respectively. The idea is that the enclosure will provide more reflected warmth to the heat loving melons. There are 6 more hills of pumpkin and squash, an early bush bean planting down the left side, and a just emerging, second planting covered by tented hardware cloth in the left foreground. The 'bean Teepee', with Scarlet Runner beans, is on the right. Beside it is a space where I just threw a lot of older flower seeds and we'll see what emerges. Below the shavings covered path at the bottom, and not pictured, is another full width hill with later planted rutabagas, just starting out. Because of the slight slope, and the amounts of rain we have experienced over the past few summers, this garden is a series of hills, and the paths are going to become permanent.

First two raised beds are the brassicas and potatoes.

In the foreground bed are the first and second, (just emerging under hardware cloth), planting of carrots, some beets, green onions here and there, herbs, a couple of zucchini plants, some chard and kale, and volunteer dill. Interspersed everywhere are marigolds, zinnias, sweet stocks, sweet alyssum, and some borage plants. (Plant dill and borage once, and you have it forever!)

The caged bed has the garlic in one end, some leeks, more onions, and lettuce under the shade cloth. Second last bed is tomatoes and the last one has the pea/cucumber fence with 22 assorted pepper plants in the far end. That is the narrow space where the deer 'scootch' by the end of the pond....hot peppers around the edge. Try a mouthful of that, my lovelies!
 

Most of the raised beds are mulched with grass clippings, or leaves saved from last fall. Yesterday, the vine hills in the Field Garden got a good layering of leaves as well. The mulch inhibits weeds and helps to retain all the lovely moisture in our sandy loam. 

If you made it to the end...congratulations!