Things seem to be going well with my garden, sort of. The challenge I’m facing is too many plants growing too closely together. I know it’s my fault for putting too many seeds in the ground. I wasn’t sure all of the seeds would germinate so tried to help the odds by putting in a continuous row of seeds. Well, all of the seeds appeared to have germinated so now I’ve got overcrowding.
Earlier on in an attempt to space things out, I managed to transfer some of the cucumbers, squash and red cabbage to a larger garden bed. That second garden bed wasn’t quite ready for planting (the bokashi needed another week or so), but ready or not, I had to do something. Even after thinning out the cucumbers and squash, it looked like I didn’t move anything. Here’s a photo of my overcrowded cucumber, squash, red cabbage, dill, mustard greens, peppermint, rosemary garden bed.
Here’s a photo of the cucumber, squash and red cabbage I moved from the above bed.
Transplants
I would transfer more but I’ve got to get more dirt for the garden bed first. Not only that, I’m not so sure that vegetables like to be transferred too far into the growing season. Guess I’ll find out once I get my truckload of dirt.
In an attempt to make things more manageable, I tried to trellis the wayward aggressively growing cucumbers. I used what I had on hand to create a makeshift trellis.
Temporary Fix
Only time will tell if it will hold up. In the meanwhile, I’ve got to find something for the second garden bed of cucumbers and squash. I don’t want to run into the same overgrowth problem. Since they’re growing at a slower pace, I can go to Home Depot to see what I can find.
It’s probably a good thing that the second garden bed isn’t growing as profusely as the first bed. I’ve read that cucumbers don’t like having their roots disturbed. I guess transplanting them disturbed them quite a bit and they’re letting me know by their stunted growth. Yet another gardening lesson learned this year.
I have yet to address the overcrowding in my tomato, basil, beet, onion, pepper garden bed. Not to mention my carrots are fighting each other for space in yet another garden bed. My basil is looking up at me longingly asking me to thin them out. I’ve got to get on that real soon or else I won’t have any basil to grow.
This has been a definite learning experience for me. I guess it could be worse. I could have sown seeds and nothing grew. Overgrowth isn’t a problem, it’s just lack of knowledge on my part. I’ll work my way through this growing season gaining plenty of school-of-hard-knocks knowledge in preparation for next season. You can bet I’ve learned my lesson this year and the growing season isn’t over yet.
I can’t wait to see what other lessons the garden has in store for me.
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