Chris' Summer Garden Tour

Chris & Annette are both avid gardeners.  We love to garden every summer.  In this video, Chris shows you around her garden.  The video was taken in June so some of the plants are still on the smaller side.

Chris uses raised beds for all of her gardening and has different covers to protect plants or to extend the growing season.  

Watch the video below on YouTube to see the whole garden tour and talk.  Keep reading for some photos and descriptions of her garden.

Chris has three raised beds which are each 4' x 8' and three other raised beds 4' x 4' size.

In her garden she grows:

• Tomatoes (multiple varieties - Cherry, Early Girl, Roma and heirloom varieties)
• Cucumbers
• Peppers (sweet and hot)
• Tomatillos
• Onions
• Lettuce
• Garlic
• Asparagus
• Strawberries
• Blackberries
• Wild Wineberries
• Blueberries
• Zucchini
• Yellow Squash
• Watermelon, Cantelope (varies)
• Herbs

Herb Garden

Her herb garden is just off the deck of her house.  This makes it easy to quickly pick needed fresh herbs while cooking.  She usually grows basil, oregano, thyme, sage, parsley, lavender, mint (in another bed), along with some other flowers to attract the bees.

Honey Bee Hives

The three beehives on Chris's property are maintained by her husband and daughter.  The bees are wonderful pollinators and pollinate EVERY SINGLE FLOWER on her fruits and vegetable plants.  Since having bees in the yard, her crops have just grown in abundance.  Thank you honey bees!

Another benefit of the honey bee hives is a source of honey.  If you'd like to learn more about how honey is harvested from a beehive, please click the link.

Blueberry Bushes

Chris has several blueberry bushes in her yard.  These bushes are all planted in a row and are shown below under the netting.  The netting is put up while the blueberries are ripening.  This protects the blueberries from getting stolen by the birds.

Chris doesn't mind sharing her blueberries with the birds, but once they find the bushes, they will eat every blueberry before they even ripen.  So, she protects the plants with these crop cages purchased from Gardener's Supply.  Look at the end of this article for a link to purchase crop cages like these.

If you have garden netting like this and it's developed holes, click the link to see our post on how to fix outdoor netting.

Shed 

Her shed holds all of her gardening supplies and is right next to her garden. The daylilies add a bright yellow to her garden area.  On the shed she has a butterfly house and some bird houses also hang from the shed to attract the birds.

Peppers

Peppers are perfect to grow in a garden and come in many varieties.  Chris likes to plant bell, banana, red, and hot varieties like jalapeno and poblano.  

She also grows tomatillo which is similar to a tomato in shape but is green and has a husk around it.  Tomatillos are used in Mexican green sauces that her husband likes to make.

Strawberries

Strawberries are a family favorite.  The strawberry patch has June bearing strawberries.  In the photo below, the strawberry bed is surrounded by a fencing.  This is a pet playpen and is used to help keep smaller critters from eating all of the strawberry plant leaves.  

Below is a closeup of the strawberry plants.  The plants are pretty small because they were replanted this year.  So, they are just getting established.  

Zucchini & Yellow Squash

The zucchini & yellow squash plants are covered by this pop-up netting.  These plants are susceptible to the squash borer bug.  By covering the plants until July 1st, the bug is past the egg-laying portion of their cycle and the plants will grow and not be killed by the bug larvae.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes grown in the garden are so delicious!  If you have had a vine-ripened tomato, you will never want to go back to the store-bought variety.  They have so much flavor!

Tomato varieties to grow are Roma (paste tomatoes), 4th of July (an early variety), cherry or grape tomatoes (small for salads or just eating!), and heirloom varieties.  Chris loves the Burpee Black Krim variety.  They are super sweet and flavorful and are wonderful on sandwiches and in salads.

Blackberries

Blackberries in the stores are very expensive.  If you would like blackberries, Chris recommends that you find a local farm where you can pick your own.  Prices will be much less expensive than store bought!  

Chris grows blackberries and her plants provide a good number of them each year.

There are also wild wineberries in the back corner of her property.  These came up on their own and Chris let them grow one year.  These wineberries make nice jam!

I hope you enjoyed the tour of Chris's garden. 

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