Simple Summer Garden

Since we have twins on the way, we decided to keep it simple in the garden this year.  First, Seth weeded the beds and then he mixed in some garden soil with fertilizer.  We opted to stick mostly with what some might call a salsa garden (or maybe an Italian-themed garden).

One exception to that theme is our mint.  It came back with a vengeance in our front herb bed.

We literally did nothing and look at it!  I'm glad we have it in a raised bed because I'm pretty sure it would have taken over the entire yard.

I'm looking forward to some mint iced tea and mojitos.

In the other herb bed, we decided to stick with cilantro.  We will have to do a better job of harvesting it consistently to keep it from going to seed like last year.

It always looks really sad when you first plant it.  Don't worry - it has since perked back up.

This year the left bed is our "pepper bed".

In the back, we planted two bell peppers, a chili pepper, and some extremely hot pepper (I forgot the name) that Seth wanted to try.  The plant in the left foreground in the photo above is an eggplant and we also stuck our basil in this bed (across from the eggplant above).

On the right side, we were surprised to see multiple onions coming up this Spring.  Again, we did nothing for them.  They must be onions that didn't germinate last year for whatever reason.  I didn't realize they could survive freezing temperatures but they look great so far.

In front of the onions, we planted four tomato plants.

We chose two cherry tomatoes, one large red slicing tomato, and a purple heirloom tomato.

We set up the soaker hose system like last year and are hopeful that we will have better success.  I'll let you know what the results are.