Home About Art Portal Writing Gardening Video Games

Garden Log

So I'm going to document month by month the garden as it develops. Hopefully. I may do this sporadically, who knows.

2026


March- April

This year I've almost finished the front pollinator garden, which was 2025's project. I've got daylilies growing from bulb, irises, columbine flowers, mountain mint that has spread wonderfully, the rose is flowering once more, a hydrangea that survived the winter, sedum, black-eyed susans that are returning, and lots of phlox and aster.

My main focus is the vegetable garden around the side, where I have potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, garlic, radishes, parsnips, and some other things I forget (but will remember when they pop up). So far watering has been a mess, spring is normally somewhat of a wet season here but we're currently in a drought.


The first raised bed we got last year, now with garlic that had sprouted in its container that I planted as an experiment, potatoes, carrots, and some radishes.

Tomato Bed
The paste and slicing tomatoes are comfy in their 8x3 bed. I'll be adding zucchini bushes soon and storage tomatoes next month (May).

Update we're not planting the storage tomatoes, but I did get milkweed. Also the irises are going nuts.

Irises 1
The yellow bearded irises getting ready to bloom
Irises 2
The irises blooming

Watering will be a beast, as it is every year. I'm going to experiment with Ollas, (pronounced 'oya' due to how Spanish works ) clay pots filled with water used to slowly irrigate the soil through condensation. Making them yourself is simple; you need an unglazed terracotta pot, a cover for it, and a cork or other stopper at the bottom of the pot to block that drainage hole. Fill with water, bury it deep enough that the sides are covered in soil, and it will percolate water through the clay walls into the soil as needed. What I need to find out is how many we need, what size we need, and how often they'll need to be refilled.


The cucumbers are very happy with their bed, soon they'll be climbing the trellis and the fence.

2025

The focus this year was on setting up the front yard to look nicer than the dirt and mud pit it started as. We put down landscaping fence, moved the rose bush which really did not enjoy being moved, and planted multiple perrenials such as foamflower, sedum, and shrubby St John's wort. We set up creeping phlox on the sidewalk bed to act as groundcover, and planted two bearded irises as well.

The vegetable garden this year consisted of two raised beds, with tomatoes that due to high nitrogen did not fruit, peppers that took their time, and a million cucumber plants that crawled up the trellis and along the fence, giving us daily fruits. We got "red seedless" grapes from Lowes that turned out to be concord grapes, a seeded grape that is very good at escaping containment and invading the wild.