Agriculture Report: Plantings Gone Wild

What is an “Agriculture Report”? Well I was inspired by  @quiteayarnblog‘s ongoing series of posts titled “Agriculture Report” (and this title always cracks me up) that are actually updates of what is going on in her garden. I just had to adopt this same title for updates on what is going on in my garden/my “garden report“…

Some of my US based blogging buddies who are of a “certain age” might remember a series of awful late night infomercials selling videos of female college students making curious college and Spring-Break partying decisions called “Girls Gone Wild“.

I haven’t thought about these informercials for years and then it popped into my head when I was checking on my garden the other day because I have PLANTINGS GONE WILD!

Tomatoes, Tomatoes

I am on my 4th summer of growing tomatoes on my upstairs deck in Colorado. This year my tomato plants have GONE WILD and are the biggest they’ve ever been! I didn’t do anything different this season than previous seasons but the tomato plants are growing like crazy.

I hope I have a large enough tomato harvest this year to make a pasta sauce as well as salsa with my tomatoes!

Free Seeds Out of Control

In my April 2024 post Explored a new library, tried a new group I shared that a local was giving out free packets of seeds (vegetables and flowers) – 3 packets per library patron per day.

Well after John built me a raised bed (see post John gets “ScrapHappy” too – new raised bed) in June, I planted most of the vegetable seeds in the raised bed to include cucumber, squash, carrots, spinach and onion. However I thought it was too late in the season in Colorado to get a decent harvest so I thought the seeds would help “seed” my new raised bed with organic material as a base for next year’s garden.

So I haphazardly planted my seeds and did not label what was planted in the different areas of the bed.

And now I am dealing with SEEDS GONE WILD! Every seed seems to have sprouted and some plants are exploding everywhere…and I don’t know what they are as they are crops I’ve never planted before!

Yikes! At least I recognize the marigolds I planted for pest control! We put netting over the bed to help keep birds and squirrels out of the garden and so far it appears to be working.

I tried early on to thin the bed once I realized the seeds were sprouting and growing like crazy but the new sprouts were too delicate and some did not survive the replanting. So I just left most of it as a “hot mess”.

I guess I will have to wait until it is time to harvest the vegetables to find out what some of them are! Oh how sloppy my raised bed garden looks!

In Other Agricultural News

Although it looks a bit crowded, my herb container gardens seem to be flourishing this year and I am continually enjoying fresh herbs for cooking this season. For example I’ve harvested all the parsley and basil twice and it keeps growing back!

I love when a recipe calls for “fresh parsley” and I can go grab it from my deck garden!

I’ll close out my Agriculture Report with this inspirational quote I found in a magazine that I put up in my studio: