How does our garden grow

Standing in Rob's plot

I just went out to water my garden plot and saw that several other people had just done the same. It's cloudy but dry today, perfect conditions for our plants to soak up some moisture. There are five plots here, bottom to top: as I said, I'm standing in Rob's for the picture, with my plot the one with the purple flamingo just beside his. Then Lynn's, which is finally beginning to look quite nice. Nathan's is next, with the chair strategically placed for him to sit and admire his veggies. And last of all is Keith's, which just got planted this last weekend.

Keith's newly planted plot

Keith likes to start most of his from seed, and I notice with a bit of envy that he's also got two raised beds this year. I almost always get my plants from purchased garden starts, because I'm just not that handy with plants and like to have someone else start them. Plus, slugs seem to decimate those little tender shoots that come out of the ground.

My strawberries

And look! My strawberries are already starting to ripen! I've ordered some copper tape from Amazon to put around the patch so I won't come out to find that the slugs beat me to them. My slug bait (just add beer!) container is catching plenty of them, but there are still so many more.

Harvested kale plus garnet kale

I harvested my first kale from the garden yesterday, with Russian kale and black kale (on the right and in the middle) steamed and absolutely delicious. I let the garnet kale (on the left) alone so it can continue to get a bit more robust before I harvest it. The good thing about kale is that you cut all the leaves off and they grow back even more abundantly. In the upper left you can see the collards that I will harvest next.

So, as you can see, our gardens are growing wonderfully! The other side is doing well, too, except there are only three planted plots and the center section. We've got one dormant, and one that is just too wet for much success until much later in the season. I'll show you those other plots soon.
:-)