I find it very helpful to take photos throughout the growing season to track progress and to help me better prepare for the years ahead. And I know that, when researching hugelkultur prior to embarking upon this permaculture growing method myself, there were few start-to-finish articles available. So I’d like to make sure I share photos of my garden as the season matures.

Here’s what’s happening in the garden right now:

Potatoes! Lots of them- in 3 different beds planted May 13th, 21st, and June 10th. In my Planning for the Cold Climate Heirloom Garden post, I talked about growing a lot of what you know you will and can use, rather than trying to grow a little bit of everything. For us, potatoes are one of those things. We eat a ton of them. Not only do they store really well but, but canned potatoes are also a great option. We do both. And nothing beats a fresh potato- if you’ve never had one, you’ll be surprised to know that they are as crisp and juicy as apples!

We planted two different varieties of heirloom bush peas: Green Arrow & Canoe. Word to the wise: don’t be fooled by the suggestion that you don’t need to stake bush peas. Mine have far exceeded their estimated height and have fallen over, needed staking and support. This is a great problem to have, but in the future I would definitely provide them a trellis. This week, they’ve just started flowering and have been transforming into beautiful little pods like this one above. Planted May 2nd. Survived a very hard 25 degree frost- some of the plants actually showed a little bit of browning after that frost but fully recovered and are incredibly prolific.

Another vegetable that we eat a lot as a family are green beans. One of our beds we planted intensively with a few varieties of heirloom bush beans: Provider, Royalty Purple, and Bountiful. Intensive planting is modeled after square foot gardening, but not necessarily in squares. It takes the idea that if plants can be spaced 4″ apart in a row, they can be spaced that far apart in all directions if planting in a raised bed or an area that does not require paths for walking (this is discussed also in my Permaculture Gardening: Working With Nature, Not Against It post). That means we have about 350 bush bean plants spaced 4″ apart in the one bed. This not only allows you to plant a larger number of plants in a smaller space than a traditional garden, but also helps crowd out weeds while shading the root zone.

Here we have bush beans companion planted with potatoes, which we did in two of our beds.

We also planted Moonlight Runner Beans that will hopefully cover this old ladder, as well as climb up the fence posts around our garden. I was excited to see them send out their runners this week!

Sweet corn is not easy to grow in our part of the state, so you have to grow a variety that matures quickly. I planted a 65-day corn that is maturing beautifully. Along each side of the corn in this bed I planted a highly productive heirloom cucumber called Double Yield. And along the edges of those I companion planted radishes which deter cucumber beetles and rust flies while luring away flea beetles. Cucumbers, in turn, aid in the growth of radishes.

This bed is probably my most diverse. It is planted with garlic, onions, celery, romaine, carrots, strawberries, peppers, and basil. We’ve harvested from each of the romaine plants, picked basil, and garlic scapes. The garlic itself should be ready in a few weeks as I noticed the very bottom leaves have started to die off.

This is my hugelkultur/keyhole bed that is adjacent to my main hugelkultur garden. It has 9 tomato plants, as well as some basil, onions, and calendula. It was built like a hugel bed but in a more typical raised bed style and has a large compost ring in the center that continually feeds the plants. The tomatoes in this bed are much larger than those in the raised bed in front of my house my other 18 tomato plants live. I’m excited to see what kind of yield I get out of them as I hope to build more of these beds next year.

I loved this idea I found on Pinterest for keeping my garden hose under control. Thankfully, with the steady blessing of rain this past month, I haven’t had to water since planting so it’s been nice having a way to keep the hose in order :).

How has your garden been growing this season? So many of my blogging friends are already harvesting so many things that we have to wait months for yet…but it’s exciting to see what everyone is doing and gets me so anxious for that busy time ahead :).

Thanks for stopping over for my garden update!