As promised, pics of composted garden

These are latest from my garden, not the best, but you get the idea.

This bed went from "arrested development" phase into an overachiever phase. Zucchini hybrid, Odessa squash, Rouge vif pumpkin are making the back row, Hansel eggplant which finally decided to like me, two pepper varieties, two tomato (compact) are on the front. You can see some stuff is mulched with straw, and some if just composted, and a big bale of straw is still sitting on the left, waiting to be distributed.



Next bed features sweets: musk melon, spread apart and grown three different ways for experimentation, water melon (back right), and pole beans in between. Nothing on the front at this point, but once musk melon make a nice canopy in the middle, I'll plant lettuce and spinach under.


Last but not least: cucumbers in the back, bush beans, fully producing, couple of different melons just starting in the back, for fun. There is one hardworking cauliflower trying to grow in the front left, and a bushy basil on the front right going crazy. This bed will get broccoli for fall crop.


See all of my gardening photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/crainny/sets/72157624183538924/

Looks great. I am a fan of straw as a mulch. However, for whatever reason I found it counterproductive here in So Cal. I was trying, years ago, to do the Ruth Stout method and found all it did was harbor pests. I have used dried grass clippings on my SFG for the bigger plants, but not straw yet. Of course the grass clippings were plentiful and free...

Looks fantastic!! Glad to know someone else is trying the Rouge Vif. Yours look bigger than mine. How many pole beans did you plant? I was really surprised how thickly mine grew in.

I only planted one square's worth of them. They took a bit to come up, but now they are growing like crazy.

I did a square each of pole beans and pole limas... and not really a full square, either. I had 3 pole beans and I think 4 pole limas. The pole beans are producing PLENTY... I don't think I need any more plants than that next year, unless I want extra to save for dry beans. (That was sort of the plan for this year, too -- eat/can as many as I could/wanted, and save any that got away from me for dry beans.) I am on my 2nd harvest and have maybe 4 quarts worth.