Garden Update: New Raised Beds and What's Growing this Summer

A few weeks ago, I took two days off work to build four raised garden beds that would become our annual kitchen garden. I'll write more about my process of building these raised beds, but in the mean time, I wanted to share how our garden renovation is progressing.

Plant Profile: Borage

Whenever I see my borage plant growing in my garden, in my head I sing the words "My borage brings all the bees to my yard" to Kelis' Milkshake. Seriously though, this plant is a bee magnet. Whenever I walk by a borage plant in bloom, there buzzes a bee. 

Beyond bringing bees to your garden, what can borage not do? You can eat its flowers and leaves, it's a fantastic companion plant, and, if you're particularly crafty, you can make an oil from its seeds that's high in omegas. Also, it's incredibly easy to grow from seeds. For the most part, I use it for it's delicious, cucumber tasting flowers, to attract bees, and sometimes to companion-plant. I find it thrives, despite my ignoring it for much of the spring--only recently have I started trimming and watering my borage.

Garden Technique: Square Foot Gardening

Square foot gardening is the (often edible gardening) technique where a garden's area is divided into squares, often 1' by 1', hence the name, and plants are assigned to a square plot. In comparison with more traditional row gardening, plants are packed together as closely as possible.  I started gardening this way last year and love it for it's efficiency, yields, and simplicity. 

If you're limited on space, square foot gardening a great way to pack your annual edibles into smaller areas. While there is some criticism that this "crowding" of plants will limit root production and thus plant production based on competition for water and nutrients, I didn't find this to be the case. You do, however, have to be very diligent about adding compost and organic plant food throughout the season; I would recommend using a cover crop such as fava beans to add nitrogen and loam to your soil. Planting so many plants close together will be more intensive on the soil, but plan for this by prepping and feeding your beds accordingly.

Garden Recipe: How to Make a Vertical Strawberry Garden

I've been meaning to write this post for a while. A little over a year in fact. So here, finally, goes.

I'd always dreamed of fresh summer strawberries picked warm from our garden. I tried to have a strawberry patch in our Oakland garden, but I didn't mulch properly with straw, and the plants' leaves got mildew and few strawberries were produced. So last year, I ripped out my mini strawberry patch to try something new: vertical gardening in a pallet!

Garden Update: Wisteria! Anemones! O my!

The photo on the left I know these aren't exactly taken from the same position, but you get the idea! The photo on the left was taken in early March and the one on the right in late March--oh what a difference a few weeks can make!