It’s mid-June and the yard garden is in full swing!

Garden Setup

The plan

The plan this year is pretty similar to last year with containers all along my fence, the green stalk, and some coral bells for the shady corners.

The roster:

• Tomatoes (sungold, black cherry tomato, moskovich)
• Peppers (mariachi, Hungarian yellow wax)
• Herbs (basil, lemon basil, Thai basil, mint, pineapple mint, lemon balm, sage, oregano, parsley)
• Flowers (echinacea, huechera, zinnia, marigold, sunflowers, nasturtiums)
• Greens (arugula, lettuce, Swiss chard)
• Others (strawberries, acorn squash, cucumbers, provider bush beans, French dressing radishes, carrots, snap peas, green onions, white onions, popcorn)

I started the season with an opportunity. My indoor starts pretty much all died due to lack of water. I acquired a large batch of my plants from the Denver Botanic Gardens annual plant sale including tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and some flowers.

Battle of the leaf miners

The new addition this year is my greens tunnel that has been very effective so far! My swiss chard in the tunnel has been mostly unaffected by the pesky leaf miners that plague the unprotected greens. I constructed it with some snap together plastic tunnel framing, mesh netting, and some clips.

Irrigation

I upgraded my irrigation system with an additional soaker hose line, and custom cut leader hoses to bridge the gap between my water timer and the soaker hoses. Last year I lost a lot of water in the sections of the soaker hoses that ran between the time and the plants. This year I decided to make short hoses by cutting them to custom length and adding repair ends to them. It was a very easy and satisfying project!

Happenings

It has been an unusual start to the season with a late hard frost and snow in May followed by a lot of heat, and now entering hail season. Denver has already been hit with two hail storms this month. In spite of the pending danger the garden has been really taking off! In a few weeks the plants have started to take off running and pop out new leaves, blooms, and even some fruit!

Battle of the bean muncher

I waited a long time for my beans to germinate this season which made it devastating to find the top munched off! I employed a sophisticated protection device on this and my other tender bean shoot and am proud to report that the munched shoot has put out new leaves and should have a happy life.

Harvest

I’m looking forward to some more germination and baby plants, continued growth in the warm sunshine, and pray to the hail gods to spare my little oasis!