Garden Journal: June 30

Today's garden journal is brought to you by companion planting.  

This winter, I read Carrots Love Tomatoes and did some rough note taking on what grows with what, and what doesn't.  

aaaand...now all my beds, both vegetable and flower, look like crazy quilts.

and I love it!

All the plants pictured here (with exception of the largest broccoli & caulis) were grown by me, from seed, in our awesome sun room!

Borage, New Zealand Spinach and Sadie's "Rainbow Treasure" strawberries--the blooms are so pretty!

 Cosmos, Zinnias, Forget-me-Nots

 Calendula, green zinnias, and the nasturtiums I didn't think were going to grow (climbing, and vesuvius)

 Tomatoes, the re-do.  Interplanted with Basil that hasn't sprouted yet, and more carrots.

 pumpkins & nasturtiums

 broccoli, veronica, chamomile, cauliflower, Kale, Fennel, dill, lettuce, cabbage, marigolds, calendula, amaranth!

 Lettuce & spinach rainbow!  Salad days are here! Behind it are peas, sunflowers, rutabagas

 and the opposite end is planted with radishes, beets, three types of carrots (45, 65 & 75 day varieties) green onions, marigolds, bee balm and more chamomile--which is just about ready to harvest!

and this chaos... remember the bed I planted with Ranunculas in May?  Well, it looked like they weren't going to grow, so I planted some other stuff... and apparently Sadie did too (nasturtiums!)  And now everything is growing.  There are echinacea, giant zinnias, rannunculas, sweet alysum, strawberries, something from a wildflower mix that are looking like bachelor's buttons,  cosmos, bells of Ireland, forget-me-not, wild bergamont, pink columbine, nasturtiums, and this thing that was so puny and weak when I transplanted it that I though for sure it would kick it:

This picture doesn't do justice to the giganticness of it!  It is Love-Lies-Bleeding (aka amaranth).

 Also, this pineapple ground cherry was almost withered away when I put it in, and it is happily taking up it's own corner and making flowers that may just turn into fruit. 

I guess this is my fable flower bed. It was my home for last-chancers and things I didn't think would grow--and now I'm so pleasantly surprised!  There is even a big old frog living in there eating up bugs.  Must have thought all those nasturtiums were lily-pads!

And that is where things stand in my garden as we enter this lovely month of July.

What a sunny beautiful month June has been--one of the nicest I can remember here in the old AK!