Backyard Garden

I'm eagerly awaiting my potato plants to "fall down" so I can dig them up. They are showing signs of dying back so we are almost ready. This is one of my fav's to harvest because its so much fun for my son to go on a hunt digging them up. Interestingly, for the first time, I'm seeing little green fruits on some of the plants where the flowers use to be. Did some research and here's what I found. I'll try to post pics later today:

FROM: Iowa State University Horticulture & Home Pest News

Occasionally gardeners are surprised to find small, round, green, tomato-like fruit on their potato plants. These fruit are not the result of cross-pollination with tomatoes. They are the true fruit of the potato plant. The edible tubers are actually enlarged, underground stems. Normally, most potato flowers dry up and fall off the plants without setting fruit. A few flowers do produce fruit. The variety 'Yukon Gold' produces fruit more heavily than most varieties.

The potato fruit are of no value to the gardener. Potato fruit, as well as the plant itself, contain relatively large amounts of solanine. Solanine is a poisonous alkaloid. The small fruit should not be eaten. Since potatoes don't come true from seed, no effort should be made to save the seed.

Updates to what's going on in the backyard as of this past weekend.

But first, kinda corny, I know, but I decided to "greet" everyone at the front door with a little indictor of what this home is all about. So we begin my "backyard tour" at the front door herb planter.

I also want to boast that other than the few snail intruders, I am shocked and somewhat dismayed how little issues with pests of any kind I'm having this year. I am still gardening organically. But unlike past years where various bugs, caterpillars, bunnies, rodents and birds have caused me to have to devise protective measures, I haven't even found a single tomato horned worm! Why are the copious amounts of bunnies leaving it alone? OH BOY - did I just jinx myself?!?! My pug really is the only animal offender I'm having to ward!

A lot is going on in the back yard including already harvesting bok choy, salad greens, strawberries, blue berries, tons of herbs, but because the first tomato of the season is something to celebrate, I'm sharing my Golden Cherry :-):

And for the rest of the garden...

I've added more tomato plants to the back of the yard now that I've found stools to elevate them to get enough sunlight. I have about 15 tomato plants, but will add more over the next couple weeks.

Next couple of pictures are some of the 50+ strawberry plants (along back and in 2x4 square foot garden). In front are mostly herbs in containers along with a few flower plants sprinkled in. In the 2nd picture you can also see the corn plants coming up along the back (about 12" high), along with squash plants in front.

In my version of creating a Three Sisters Garden, I've also just planted bean seeds along side of each corn plant. Here is a summary of what this is all about:

According to Iroquois legend, corn, beans, and squash are three inseparable sisters who only grow and thrive together. This tradition of interplanting corn, beans and squash in the same mounds, widespread among Native American farming societies, is a sophisticated, sustainable system that provided long-term soil fertility and a healthy diet to generations.

Basically the pole beans use the corn plants to climb up, and because squash leaves are large and low to the ground, they help retain moisture in the soil. All 3 plants together produce healthy, fertile soil that helps to sustain each plant.

Pictured in the below 4x4 square foot garden from left to right -

Back row: Bell Pepper plants

2nd row from back: bok choy (going to seed - this will be my first attempt at harvesting seeds to use next year), hot pepper plants, beets (the young leaves have been delicious in salads!)

3rd row from back: Romaine lettuce, very tiny spinach, and swiss chard plants

Front row: Romaine lettuce, I'd like to say spinach but I think the spinach never sprouted and mesclun seeds jumped over from the next square, mesclun (for such a little area so many delicious salads have been born!), broccoli (very slowly growing. And, quite frankly, I'm not convinced that this is even broccoli!)

Lastly, on the right side of this I just planted another grape plant. I'm hoping this will start to climb the fence as well as the other grape plant I have (pictured farther below)

In the 2x4 SFG below these are mostly tomato plants. I had to pull one from heavy blight, but thankfully it doesn't seem to have spread to the others. You can't see it well here, but I've also added an extra squash plant I had to a back row. Kinda random, but we'll see if I can train it to go along the left of the box.

In the back left is the larger grape plant that is climbing the fence. The plant in the front container is more bok choy I'm allowing to go to seed.

For some reason, I feel that every yard should have a pink flamingo. Especially if a very masculine guy lives in the house. Cheap laughs for me when Tony's military buddies are over. ;-)

The 1/2 wine barrel has the carrots, with more tomato plants hanging in back and bell and hot pepper plants in the containers.

This 1/2 barrel has my potato plants that are doing wonderfully!

I just LOVE 1/2 wine barrels. They are relatively inexpensive compared to other pots of that size ($30-40) and are nice and deep for root veggies. This one actually contains the sprawling mints plants. Mint has become one of my favorite and most used herbs. It's great in salads, mixed with fresh fruits, cocktails....

Oh and did I say every yard should have 1 pink flamingo? I meant 3.

Moving past the top tier of my yard where I have only square foot gardens and container plants, the 2nd & 3rd levels of my yard I've planted directly into the ground. I plan to continue to build more SFG's for these areas as well. They are just so much easier to maintain and protect.

Here the onions (left) and potato plants (right) are doing very very well.

This is one of my two dwarf orange trees that are newly planted this season. So far she seems happy.

Unlike the carrots in the 1/2 barrel above, these didn't sprout as well. I'm guessing there are about 3-4 dozen sprouts here, with room for many more that never came up. As mentioned above, by next planting season I hope to have at least 2 SFGs in place of the ground beds.

This is the 3rd level where I've planted salad greens and kale in the ground. 1) the weeds are uncontrollable in this area, and 2) my pug keeps pee'ing on them. So now this is officially her plant bed. NOT eating these. Next season: SFG with good weed cloth below and a protective cover on top!