2014 Garden

Here is this years garden. I do try to change up parts of it each year for some really good reasons. One of them is I don't want something akin to a monoculture. Pretty much every thing would die after a while because you're creating a nutrient desert which is not healthy long term. Different plants use different a slightly different set of nutrients. Basically by switching everything around a bit it will enrich the soil.
 

This is the Wisteria. As you can see it's doing a really good job of providing leaves in this its second year. Probably about five years, or so, from now the tree will flower.

 The rose bush to the left is getting ready to bloom. Note the lettuce, it self seeded. Make sure you get heirloom seed varieties. Hybrids aren't designed to sprout like this.

Going to have quite a few Cosmos and I think I have some other flowers mixed in. 

 Here are some more of the Spirea's. Note the potatoes. What potatoes are great for in a garden is fixing nitrogen. They also do a great job of further breaking up the soil and aerating it to a depth of a foot and a half. Partially because of the potatoes is one of the reasons why the soil is so rich after three years. I do of course bury most vegetable trimmings also. One of the things that is great about potatoes is that they show heat stress than almost anything you can grow. If the leaves are wilting you'd better start doing some extra watering at night and keep a closer eye on the rest.

The strawberries are looking good. Found an issue with the last fruits where the ants were coming to eat them on the plants. I don't play that so I doused the plants with cayenne pepper. Let's see the ants eat that.

I need to harvest most of this garlic. It was planted last year and it's still growing now. When the ends of the stalks are yellowing it's time you can harvest.