Summer Garden Love

One of my greatest and most rewarding hobbies in life is gardening. There is nothing better to me than picking a fresh and organic home grown vegetable (esp. tomatoes) and eating it. Whether it be because they are loaded with fresh picked goodness or because it's a labor of love, there is no other vegetable that tastes better. I always loved gardening, but I gained a real appreciation for it after taking an Organic and Sustainable gardening class in college. I learned how the conventional monoculture methods for agriculture is having a huge negative impact on the environment. It's leading to the leeching of nutrients from the soil and deforestation (this is because after the nutrients have been leeched from the soil, they have to clear more forest to move on to the next plot for leeching). The organic and polyculture method of agriculture is so much more healty for our environment. An example of polyculture is the 'Three Sisters' first used by the Native American Indians. They would plant corn in rows (corn leeches the soil of nitrogen), then they would plant pole beans (beans give nitrogen to the soil) which would grow up the corn stalks and finally they would grow pumpkins around the corn which would act as a mulch and prevent water from evaporating from the soil. This method takes 3 times less the amount of land that a conventional method would and doesn't leech nutrients from the soil. It was after taking this class that I realized the importance of utilizing my own back yard to grow food. Anyway, this is my speech for the day and I hope I haven't bored anyone the death. I am simply proud of my garden and I wanted to share it with everyone.

I was told in class that the presence of a Mantis in your garden is a sign of a healthy garden

Marigold's to keep away the pest's

Although it's hard to tell, these tomato plants are about 6 feet tall

Yellow Pear Cherry Tomato

Crookneck Summer Squash

A Pickling Cucumber

A baby Armenian Cucumber

Fennel. A great herb to attract beneficial insects.

There are Zucchini, pumpkins and Armenian Cucumbers in here. There are a total of 8 plants in this bed (all of which are intertwined and tangled). I only planted 3 of them. The rest are bonus plants. By bonus I mean that they came up from seeds that were in my compost. I throw all my organic kitchen scraps into a compost bin. The seeds are supposed to become sterile by the high heat that a cooking compost pile can get to, but obviously mine didn't get hot enough. When they popped up, I was curious enough to let them grow.

A baby Zucchini (one of the bonus plants)

My trusty dog :)

The black thing on his collar is not a bark collar. It's an invisible fencing collar. It warns him when he is too close to the perimeter of the fence. If he goes over the perimeter, yes, it will give him a little zap. We put it on him to keep him out of the garden, which he would otherwise trample as he has done in the past.