Take a closer look at the gardens at Dogwood Pond Farms. We have lots of veggies growing right now using all organic, no-till, natural methods. Here is the end of June Dogwood Pond Farms garden tour.
The Big Garden
Here is the June Dogwood Pond Farms garden tour of the gardens in early summer. I currently have two gardens. In the video below, I show you my new garden that I planted back in the middle of May. Where I live in Missouri, I am in zone 6a. I like to plant my summer garden in mid-May to make sure there is no danger of frost and that the ground is nice and warm. If you want to find your USDA hardiness zone, you can use this look it up here. I also show you my old garden that I started in early spring.
The First Half of the Garden
This year, I planted some of my favorites along with some plants that I have never tried before. I planted amaranth, a non-gluten, ancient grain. I have never planted it before, so I planted one row to see how it does. Right next to that I planted some basil. I love basil for making pesto. Check out my pesto recipe (and more about growing basil) here. Next to that, I have some cilantro. Take a look at my salsa recipe (and more about growing cilantro) here.
I also have lots of cucumbers which is one of my favorite vegetables to grow. I like to plant a lot of them to eat fresh and to have some for pickling. Check out my recipe for refrigerator pickles here. I have also been doing some companion planting this year. There are sunflowers and radishes around my cucumbers. I also sprinkled herb seeds of dill and borage around my cucumbers. These are all supposed to be beneficial in some way to cucumber plants.
I planted celery and beans together. My favorite way to preserve green beans is freezing them. Here's my post about how I do that. Next to the green beans and celery, I have some eggplant. I have a lot of trouble with growing eggplant because flea beetles eat the leaves of the plants. I tried planting radishes around the eggplant to try to deter the flea beetles from eating the eggplants.
Next in my garden are peppers. Peppers do really well in our hot and humid climate here in Missouri. I have a few different varieties that will be good for fermentation, salsas and eating fresh. Finally, I just planted a row of beets and sunflowers. I put these where I had just harvested my radishes. I have a video and post detailing how I fermented the radishes. They were really delicious this way!
The Other Half of the Garden
Those are all the vegetables in the first half of the garden. The other half of the garden is dedicated to tomatoes. All of my tomatoes are heirloom varieties. I buy the seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I have about ten different varieties of tomatoes. Canning tomatoes is my favorite way to preserve them, but there are lots of things that you can do with tomatoes. Take a look at my post about different ways to use tomatoes over here. I have shredded leaf mulch around my tomatoes. Mulch is good to help conserve moisture and keep weeds down.
The Small Garden
My other garden is much smaller. It includes sweet potatoes and regular potatoes. I just planted squash, melons and pumpkins. Then there are a few celery plants and beets. I have a lot of swiss chard that did really well for me this year. Swiss chard and all greens are great because they are very healthy. There has been so much of it that I have been able to blanch and freeze it to have it all year long.
I have some broccoli that hasn't done very well for me. There were a few heads, but I think the weather wasn't ideal for this variety. It went from cold to hot too quickly. The same thing happened with my cauliflower. This is the first time I have attempted to grow cauliflower.
I have some open areas in this garden which I am planning on filling up with fall crops. Usually, I plant every space I have and don't leave enough room for fall plants. I'm trying to do better with planning for fall this year.
I have a pretty big area with oregano, which is a perennial herb. I like to dry oregano to have for cooking. Here is a post about how to dry herbs from the garden. Finally, there are a few onions and then some greens.
What's going on in your garden?
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