New bed in the cottage garden

I built it with the soil and compost left over from vegetable garden construction. And rocks. No shortage of rocks at our house.
So far I like the size, shape and placement of the bed. I should hope I would, since I designed and built it. But I find sometimes after I do something I immediately wish I hadn't or had yet and done it different. This a feeling not limited to the garden.
Not to say my new bed isn't causing problems. During the past weeks rains I've learned this - the drive needs to drain somewhere when it rains. Preferably downhill. As in over my new bed placement. The rain pooled in the corner of the drive by the new bed and ran down my mulch path, taking all my new mulch with it. Gravity.
I am thinking I will make the path into a dry stream bed. That will re-establish drainage and make for some interest.

End of September

The garden is coming on. I fertilized everything with a liquid, organic (I am so good, I know) fertilizer on Monday morning. Then it rained Monday afternoon and again today. Things are going my way.

On the "things are not going my way" front - something is eating my pole beans and cucumbers. There are little holes in the new leaves. I decided not to treat with anything yet. Don't be confused, this is not part of any grand Integrated Pest Management plan. I am just lazy, busy with other things (it is college football season after all) and didn't have anything on hand to treat with. I don't even know what is eating them. Whatever it is doesn't hang around to be found - grasshopper, caterpillar, very small rabbit? No telling. The plants will either be strong enough to push through or, well, die.

Variety List

The long promised and unanticipated variety list is here. Boring stuff, I know, but this list along with the planting layout will help me rotate crops and make better informed decisions next season.

Broccoli - Early Green

Pumpkin - Jack be Little

Nasturtium - Tall Single Blend

Cucumber - Poinsett 76

Pole Bean - Kentucky Wonder

Carrot - Little Finger

Dill - Dukat Leafy

Fennel - Smokey Bronze

Southern Pea - California Blackeye #5

Summer Squash - Early White Bush Scallop

Lima Bean - Henderson Bush

Parsley - Italian "Gigante"

Tomato - Homestead #24

All of these seeds were purchased at local garden centers, so I was at their mercy as to my choices. This spring I am planning on doing more research and ordering seeds online.

Oxbloods

Rhodophiala bifida - thanks to last week's rains.

Lindheimer Senna

A Texas native, anchoring the garden in the early fall.

Pumpkin seedlings

with artistically placed watering can. Photo courtesy my lovely wife. Like all the other photos on this site. About time she contributed something to the garden. I think we all remember the time she withheld information that resulted in the destruction of 5 innocent tomato plants.

Lima Beans!

as of 9.05.
They are now huge, massive, monumental. I am going to thin them tomorrow or the next day. I wrote earlier how different the Lima's are with the bean coming out and then breaking open to reveal the leaves. You can see that here.
Now that some pole beans are up I'm realizing that method of germination is pretty common in the bean world. That doesn't make it uninteresting, just makes me ignorant.

Planting Diagram, seedling emergence update

As promised. Just left click on the diagram and it will become big enough to read.

I will sit down with my seed packets at some point so there is a list of varieties that I used. I've tried on two occasions, only to have my almost 2 year old daughter commandeer my lap and desk for coloring. A much better use of my time than chronicling seed varieties for posterity I think. Every color is pink or yellow to her. I've asked her if she is color blind. She says no.

The key -

1 Broccoli

2 Parsley

3 Carrots

4 Fennel

5 Nasturtium

6 Dill

7 Pole Beans

8 Black-Eyed Peas

9 Cucumber

10 Gourds

11 Lima Beans

12 Pumpkins

13 Tomato (singular)

14 Summer Squash

We've had rain the past two days, a shocking and exciting event, and more seedlings are up. In fact, I have at least one seedling of everything I've planted. I tried covering the soil with damp newspaper to keep the soil moist / prevent crusting and it seemed to help and get everything started. Then the rain came and all the plants have started sprouting in an aggressive fashion. I like the damp paper, but it looks like I converted my garden to a city park bench (sans bum), so I am going to go for damp burlap from now on.

On the death by neglect watch - one Nasturtium has fried in the sun, but my lone Tomato is hanging on.

Seedlings!

The promised garden layout drawing has to wait - we have big news -
It took a some time and I was beginning to wonder what I was doing wrong (wrong soil, too much water, not enough water, bad living), but I have seedlings. 8 days after going in, the pumpkin seedlings were up. This was four days ago and now I have four pumpkin seedlings, two of which have put on a second set of leaves. I also have five lima beans (really unique seedlings - the bean gets shoved out of the ground and the leaves break out of the bean), three gourds, three cucumbers, one pole bean and two nasturtiums.
And for those hoping for failure - my no shows are broccoli, carrots, parsley, dill, fennel and black-eyed peas. I am going to try again on the broccoli through fennel, but I think it is too late on the black-eyed peas. So much for a happy new year. Also, I gave in to temptation and planted tomato transplants on August 25th. Only 2 months late, but they were on sale and I've never had what one would call self control. Four of six burnt up in 24 hours. I think I doomed them because I planted them in one bed and then moved them to another after watering them. We are now down to one and he/she is looking pretty stressed as well. My wife read in the Dripping Springs news letter to give tomato transplants some afternoon shade, so I've taken to leaving a five gallon bucket on the west side of the survivor. Where were you on the 25th, love?
But failures aside, I am basking in the success of planting seeds and then coming out to find seedlings. I am also enjoying wondering what to do with my seedlings. When to thin, when to mulch, how much thinning and mulching, when to decrease watering intervals and when to fertilize. I've found that gardening texts are fairly casual, non-specific and - when they do go into specifics - contradictory with some of these recommendations, leaving me to make decisions I am not well equipped to make. I am having great fun with all of it.