This Week in My Garden :: July 5

Well, watering the garden has certainly been of no concern this year.  My daily fear is that I'll come home from work and the whole thing will have washed away.  I have a new appreciation for the hard work of a farmer whose livelihood is dependent on something as fickle as the weather.  The progress of my tiny little garden ties my stomach is knots.

I keep reminding myself that this is our first year with this garden - and my first year gardening at all! - and that it's a learning year.  We'll see what works and what doesn't, which beds are super soggy and which are dry.  And we'll be grateful for any bounty that makes it onto our plates and into our bellies.  I've already used garlic scapes and chives (thank you previous owners!) in several dishes.  And I made my favorite salad dressing with some of our dill this week.

The cucumber seeds that I planted weren't washed away by the flooding last week, and there are adorable little cucumber seedlings sprouting up now.  Sadly, the flower seeds were washed away, but that felt less important to me than the cucumbers.

After these rains, I've been going in and picking off slugs.  Tons of them on everything.  I need to put out some more beer, and I've been using the cayenne pepper solution for Japanese beetles on my basil plants that Jess recommended in the comments to my last garden update.  The combination of things seems to be working.

Several weekends ago, my mom helped me weed it, and I cleaned out the beds that were overgrown from last year, so things are looking a bit more presentable.  Obviously the most important part of the garden! ;)

What's happening in your garden?