This years garden is sad. None of the explosive growth from two summers ago. My plants are not doing great, and I am not sure why. I’ve had extreme pest issues, and in general a lot of yellowing leaves around the base of everything, and I have just not figures it out yet.
However, I’ll just keep at it.
Saddest tom’s and basil ever.
The most sad are the tomatoes and basil. I could not get any direct seeds to go, so I just bought some starts at the local place. It did get me to a nursery that I like, but I would have preferred to direct start the seeds myself.
When my shed project is done I am putting in a Spyder grow tent for early starts of my own. We will see if that does the trick, but for now, this is what I have.
Green onions are good, but nothing else is.
My nappa cabbage got consumed and is like two leaves total because the pest issue. I am not even sure what’s doing it. It’s not a bug I can see when I look, so it must be a night eater. No chives, but I had difficulties with those last time as well. I must be doing something wrong. My green onions are great though. They really are thriving.
You can see the potatoes are starting to grow out of the grow bags. I might add some extra soil and mound them to make sure we get a bunch of them come fall.
I have squares that are bare. My radishes did poorly, and an early heat patch caused them to bolt like woah! I never did get a beet to come up, and the turnips are weird and not doing anything but leaves when I check.
I ordered some more seeds from Epic Gardens for my summer planting. Although if you want fast, they are not it. I love the quality of their seeds, and the volume of info on the packaging. I ordered some zucchini summer squash, turnips, carrots, eggplant, and beets on 6/26/25, 6 days ago, and they do say 3-6 business days the shop out, but the 4th is this week, so we will see if it ships at all before next week. I was kind of anxious to get a move on, but we will see. My biggest gardening weakness is my lack of patience.
I still have lot’s of soil from spring, and the gravel to make my other two beds work better. I will probably make that work in winter when I have more time. The shed projects are taking up all my available healthy days for work.
So whatever happened to my garden this year, I am still undeterred. I will continue to try and research to see if I can find a solution.
With all this hoopla about the shed installations, I haven’t been documenting my garden work.
Early morning garden.
This year I topped off my beds with soil, finally getting them up to level. I used my own compost for the first time. I was amazed that it worked. I will likely get another compost bin or build one at some point.
I then planned out my garden for planting. Every year I plan out my beds. Below is my plan with the date I planted them.
2025 Garden Plan
I jumped the gun on some of those, and mid April was way too early. I thought we were in the clear, but we still had some very cold frost dates.
When I get the back yard shed replaced with the bigger one, I am going to devote a small bit of space to one of those Spyder branded grow tents. If anyone can grow plants in a shed, it’s a pot grow tent. I imagine they are built to be plant friendly in the weirdest environments because you know, pot.
I did have to do a bit of replanting. My dill and basil were like a total no go. Even now? After replanting the basil on 5/7/25, I am not seeing even the slightest leave. I had such good luck with the basil last time, but I just can’t get them to come up. I might consider going to the nursery and getting six little starts and just doing it that way.
Green onions.
My grocery store green onions are exploding, but I also planted some Tokyo Long White’s and Italian Red’s from Botanical Interests. Most of my seeds are from there, as I have had pretty good luck with that.
I have several cabbages planted, and they started to come up but the cabbage moths are already out in force. In like a day the tiny leaves were almost eaten up, so I pulled out some BT spray and that seems to be helping. I have been spraying them twice a week to help, and they seem to be popping back up. My enemy this year is the cabbage moth.
Patty Pans.
Another big win is the patty pans are going to town. I wish the tomatoes next to them would take off, but it’s been slow going for them. I love my tom’s and I am a bit worried for them.
Potatoes in bags.
I am also doing 4 bags of potatoes. They are coming up really well too. I’ve never grown potatoes before so I am hopeful.
My rhubarb has blown up. I just cut down the flowering seed stalk part that was taller than me yesterday. Next to it is an empty bed. With the entire shed ordeal being ongoing, I am just not up to digging it all out, laying down gravel and replacing the beds on this wall of the house right now. Instead I will let my rhubarb and mint go wild and see how I feel about setting that up this winter, after all the sheds are in place and done.
Rhubarb.
Mint.
Ignore the Kia Soul over there. It’s one of the theft-bate versions, so it lives in my back yard behind a fence unless we have an emergency and need it. It’s getting traded in as soon as my Subaru is paid off.
The real star of the garden this year, as you may have noticed from the pictures, was the irrigation set up.
Irrigation timer.
I tried it a bit last time, but I went to Drip Depot and followed the directions on their YouTube video on how to set it up this year and it was so damn easy. I am a convert.
This was way easier to set up than the kit I got off Amazon. I had it all done fast. It’s reliable, and I set it up to water twice a day for an hour. My beds look great and I feel like when you are playing Minecraft and your base levels up.
This is single handedly the most useful upgrade I could have done. Now if it’s a bad day for me and I am in bed, my garden is still getting watered. I am ecstatic.
Now if I could just get my basil to start up, I’d be perfect.
I missed gardening last year, but now that I know my wife is okay, I feel emotionally able to make an attempt at it this year.
My first year here in the house was really successful, but as we know, the squirrels really came in strong as garden raiders and soil destroyers. While kind of funny that they just ignored the chicken wire and crawled right through, it was aggravating.
Now that my hoop house is recovered in hardware cloth, with 1/2″ by 1/2″ squares, the squirrels have not been able to get in.
I, unfortunately discovered I have some pre-season work I have to do to finish all that up.
This is a picture of the invisible chicken wire the camera would not show, sandwiching weeds growing between that and the hardware cloth.
Between the layer of chicken wire and hardware cloth, weeds are growing. They are super hard to remove because of the chicken wire. I have to literally cut back the chicken wire and then pull the weeds. That’s hard for me to do. It requires bending over and my joints just don’t like it. I can do a section, maybe two at a time.
Add to that, that this is the Pacific Northwest, and it’s often pouring this time of year. That makes it super hard to get all this done. This week it’s been clear, but in the 20F temperature range, and I am just gonna have to wait until things clear up.
During my last work session, I pulled the good soil out of the other beds, and used it to top off the ones in my protected garden. I am going to concentrate on the beds that are protected in my hoop house first and work on the rest through out the year.
My protected covered hoop house, with two beds filled with soil to the top, and mulched with straw. One bed is still a work in progress.
I have decided to pull my other beds by the front and back of the house, and create kind of a gravel pad to put them on. I am just not into weeding, as it hurts a lot to do, so I would rather build it in that there is a reduced chance of weeds happening up front.
I’m going to create gravel beds along the back of the house, the front of the house, and in front of the deck. I’m making them good and wide, and putting my metal beds on top of that.
A side benefit is it will take more of the lawn out. I am not a fan of grass lawns, so that is a bonus.
My plan is to get some soil and gravel delivered, so I can work on this when the days come up that it’s decent enough to get something done. Then add in an irrigation system after the last freeze. I am putting a timer on this shit!
By fall I hope to have all the new bed areas set up and ready. That way next year I will have my wife’s requested flower beds, and less lawn to mow.
Last month my wife had a pretty credible cancer scare, and an emergency surgery. It was enough that 3 doctors told us to prepare for the worst. Luckily, it turned out to be a gallbladder issue and the inflammation was so bad they thought it was shelf sign, which is a metastasized set of cancer cells, and no cancer was actually in evidence.
It did mean she spent a week in the hospital, and when they removed her gallbladder it took them three different attempts to get it out, as it was one of the worst the surgeon had seen. This surgery resolved 2 decades of issues she’s had, and we are very grateful it’s finally fixed and she’s on the mend.
This means, I really have gotten nothing much done. My own surgery, disability, and then worrying about my wife? Yeah, I spent a lot of time reading monster romance novels, and laying in bed hoping for the best.
I did get some green onions planted though, and my rhubarb is going wild. My strawberries survived and seem to be thriving.
This morning I found a little friend in my strawberry patch.
Large preying mantis.
I wonder if she got in when she was small, and then got trapped. Not that she doesn’t have ample food, but the wire cage is too small for her to get out. She seemed happy though.
My wife was thrilled as she hadn’t realized they exist around here.
I am starting my planning for next spring. I need some soil, but I have compost ready from last year, and all I have to do is plant.
I will also be putting in a timer based irrigation system, so I don’t have to worry so much about getting everything watered. That’s particularly on my mind since I am watering some green onions I planted last week by hand.
I am very grateful my wife is fine, recovering, and healthy. I can now look towards my future garden plans.
This was actually really hard on me, unexpectedly. Reaching up and over is not a movement my bad collarbone does well, but little by little, I got it done.
Wife helping me!
My wife helped me, but she’s not much better off than I am. However, with the two of us, we got it done.
Close up of the half inch hardware cloth.
The hardware cloth was also a bit tricky. It will cut you easily, and I shredded my work gloves working with it. Each session of wrapping the garden cage left me with a lot of cuts and scratches.
Front gate.
I repaired the front door with a gate repair kit to it so it didn’t sag anymore. I left about a foot free on the top of the gate in hopes that pollinators would go in there. If the squirrels find it, it will be a simple matter of covering it too.
I also used a brick border where the hardware cloth came down to the ground. The bricks sit on top of a bit of hardware cloth that is tucked under them to keep the squirrels from digging under.
I used some wire to literally sew the panels on, and that worked really well. I have been keeping watch on the beds and not a single new hole has been dug since I did this.
I feel bad because most of the season is gone, but I figure that is one of the things that is cool with owning your own house. I will prep the beds, and fill them with more dirt, and be ready for next spring.
I might even have enough time to build a cage for a new external, strawberry bed by then.
The only things that survived from last year are the parsley and the strawberries. I was pleased I at least get the strawberries. Oh, and the mint and rhubarb outside the cage. They did remarkably well.
I feel really good about this because if this works, then it’s a one and done. I can then concentrate on planting my plants.
Although exhausting, it was nice to get this done. Here’s hoping I have stopped the squirrel incursion.
Well, not much is getting done. I might miss this season for gardening. After surgery I had a lot of recovery time, then I had to work on getting my garden cage squirrel-proofed, and that is a lot to do.
I haven’t even tried to plant without these protections in place because the squirrels are literally digging up my beds constantly. It’s never ending.
My garden plan is to finish the hoop house, and see if I can put some late crops in. Then slowly turn to my other beds. I have a new strawberry bed I need to cage up, as well as a sunflower, flower bed and herb beds that needs caged.
I have about 3/4 of my hoop house covered but it’s slow going. I just take a long time to heal, and my recovery from general anesthetic along with my work obligations have been a lot.
I am wrapping 1/2″ hardware cloth over the entire thing. I am using bricks to weigh down the ends of it, so squirrels can’t get in. You can literally see the squirrel holes in this picture.
My wife has been helping me because her 6’2″ height and long arms are very helpful compared to my 5’6″ stature. I am hoping this weekend to get more done. I am out of bricks so maybe I will pick some up on Wednesday afternoon.
I do like that in the picture you can see all the clover coming in. I’ve had a lot of it grow in from last year. I’ve been mowing it just like grass. I love it. I am going to seed the bald spots again and see if that helps. Clover is so nice! I don’t know why folks do grass yards.
We also had our HVAC system changed out a few months back to a heat pump. This is the single best adult purchase in my entire life. Our house is from 1935 and has thin exterior walls, so being able to control the heat and cold in the house to be comfy is a god send.
We spent $26,000 to do have the work done, and some of it was electrical to prep for this. We will see about getting some of that back at tax time, but honestly? I’d rather pay the small low interest home loan we got for it, and be comfortable.
It’s been a few months and we’ve had a few hot days, and it’s amazing. This, combined with the roof vents, and crawl space insulation means that no matter what, our home is the perfect temperature. This is the first time in a year and a half that it’s not over hot or over cold.
I decided I didn’t want to mow around the heat pump unit, so I dug up the grass around it, and laid down landscaping cloth, and put some gravel over that.
This is so tiny, but literally took me two hours, and I was physically wrecked for days!
I wanted to make sure the mowers or weed eaters didn’t come in contact with the important bits below:
Ignore the landscaping cloth peeking through, I am getting another bag of gravel this weekend to cover it.
Now we don’t have to worry about accidentally breaking anything. Honestly, I’d do the whole side of the house that way, because I hate grass lawns.
The other project I have been doing, a window or two at the time, is reflective UV film. I have been putting it on all the windows. it’s just like a giant vinyl sticker you install on the inside of your windows, that keeps out the heat, and is reflective enough you can’t see in.
You can hardly see in at all, and it sure does keep the heat of the sun out.
I was just impressed with how much heat this window film keeps out. It is also damn near impossible to see. In the picture above you can kind of see the back window, but that’s at 2 feet from the window. On the street, you see literally nothing. It’s 10/10 on blocking heat, and 10/10 on blocking folks from seeing in.
I am just trying to get all this infrastructure projects done. I don’t feel it’s the fun projects, but the basic ones to make everything livable. I am more into the decorating and planting, not the insulating and making the house livable.
I think next spring I will have all the garden beds protected with cages. I will have all the big livable projects done, and can start planting and maybe doing cool artsy decorating projects. I look forward to that.
Mostly, I am trying to give myself the grace that I would extend to anyone else. I am partially disabled. I can’t lift, or move the way healthy young folks can, so I am doing a lot. It’s just on my terms. I like to remind myself of that when I feel I am missing my own self imposed deadlines.
It is amazing though, that I have a house, and I can work on projects at my own pace because I will live here next year, and next year and so on. I sometimes forget I get to live here forever because I am so used to renting.
My garden is not going to be up to snuff this year. Between having surgery, and finding out the squirrels destroyed every bed I had, I am going to have to reset my expectations.
My big plan is to get the original garden space covered in hardware cloth. I did the back wall last weekend and I’ll be damned if the squirrels will get into that side now. The end walls are the hardest and most fiddly to do, so now I have to do the 20 feet overtop wall and roof, and then the last end with the door.
Hardware cloth is a way better option. I had no idea they could get through chicken wire.
Once I get that done, I will top up my soil, and do some late planting. Then move my attention to building squirrel cages for all the new beds I invested in last fall.
Somewhere in there I have this gazebo on the front deck to build too.
It’s going to be slow, but I own the house, so it’s okay. By next spring I will be on a roll.
I had this incredible panic about failing to meet my self imposed spring deadline. Then I realized it’s because I am not used to owning a home. If I didn’t get it done immediately, I might have to move, and never get to do it.
Home ownership is such a kindness. I can do as much are as little as I can realistically do, and there is no rush. I can do it all year and my garden will eventually be up and running.
I’ve never composted before, so this last year is the first time for me. What really worked for me was these black plastic bins from Amazon. (None of these are affiliate links. I get paid nothing if you buy anything. I just like ’em. ) I just wait until they are under $80 on sale. I hate paying full price!
Black compost bin from Amazon.
They provide that green compost turner hanging on the back wall, but it’s not good. It took too much yanking on my bad collarbone joint to work well.
Instead I got an overpriced spiral version on Amazon. I guess I am getting old because I resent spending $50 on basically a chunk of spiral metal. It works though. Really well, so I guess it’s worth the money.
Spiral compost turner.
This is far easier on my bad joints. I can twist it in, and yank it back out easily, turning the compost. Now I can do it when I want, not when my joints are good enough to do it. That’s a nice change.
I literally only turn it about once a week, when I take my table scraps out. I’m just not that dedicated. I do use my big paper shredder to shred Amazon boxes to mix in. I just don’t have browns at all if I don’t use paper and amazon boxes. The shredder was about $250, and says it won’t do cardboard, but I have been doing great with it. I am pretty impressed that I can compost like 75% of all my own cardboard. I still get overwhelmed with it, but it feels good to not dispose of so much.
I didn’t do any fancy compost calculations. I just tossed in about roughly 50% browns and 50% greens. I didn’t expect it to work so well due to my laziness, but I was wrong.
Today was the best part. I turned my compost, and it was filled with happy worms.
Worms in my compost!
I am super excited about that. When spring comes I think it will be ready to spread on my beds. I won’t have to pay for Lowe’s compost!
I have also learned that what I think will be a lot, really isn’t. The bin was filled to the very tip top in October, and now it’s broken down to so little. I had dumped some of my greens into the yard waste bin for the city to pick up, but now that I know how much it breaks down, I am not doing that again. I need that for my garden!
I bought a second one, and placed it in the corner of the yard. When the first one is done, I will move it over next to the corner one. I think I need a third now that I know what I am doing. I need enough room to fill like two of them, and let one of them just age. I think they will look nice there all in a row.
My corner compost bin.
As an aside, you can also see the clover coming in around the grass clumps. The entire yard is like that. It started as a garbage dump of trash dirt and clumps of dying scrub grass, but the clover seems very hardy. I hope by year two, it will have spread all over.
My next plan is the garden cage. I need to cover it with squirrel proof hardware cloth. My Squirrel Interdiction Cage failed spectacularly. None of my overwinter ideas are going to happen because the squirrels dug up literally everything. Including the rhubarb! Lesson learned! Squirrels can fit through chicken wire!
I am going to see about starting that process in February, when I have a little more light to work by. It’s getting dark before 5pm, and after work I just don’t have enough. When I do have a day off, it’s full of rain and I am not doing it in the rain.
When I start I will keep posting about my progress, though.
I never thought my strawberries would make it, and about half of them decided to grow like mad, and the other half produced berries. Not enough for jam, but enough for strawberries for my breakfast.
Breakfast of champions. Garden strawberries and yogurt, and hot cocoa. I know it’s like 90F every day, but I still have to start the day with hot cocoa.
I may have misjudged my ability to preserve and can, and work with so many tomatoes. My Ball book has crushed tomatoes that I can make per jar so I will probably can a jar at a time until the majority come up.
The problem is I am getting more than I can use at once, but not enough I can process into canning jars. I need 2 and 2/3 pounds per jar. I have close to 2 pounds sitting on my counter until tonight or tomorrow morning. I would rather do it today as I have today off, but I may have to can it up tomorrow for just one jar before or after work. Which, with my nature being inherently lazy, seems like a lot in one day.
The cucumbers are kind of doing the same thing. I am getting two or three at a shot, often enough I have to pull them or risk my plant giving up on me and dying, but not enough to can. I might have to make refrigerator pickles out of a bunch of them unless or until a huge batch comes up.
I am working it out, but there are definitely logistic issues about planning to can and preserve these that I never considered. Gardener Scott, on his Youtube channel, has a freeze dryer, and now I can see the appeal. You can do a small bit at a time once you own the machine. That’s not even close to being in my budget though. Nor do I have a powered shed to plug it into.
As for my latest crop I planted, the beets? They are already starting to come up. I just have to keep everything watered during this 90F+ week.
Watering has been a bit of a challenge with the overwhelming record heat. We don’t normally do this kind of hot extended sunshine here in the Pacific Northwest, so I am glad I put in the irrigation drip lines. I would not be happy standing out in it, watering for hours, with the sun on my head. Good job past me!
For a first year garden, these are all great problems to have. It’s already making me consider next year and how I want to handle that. So far, so good though.
The above are 4 cucumbers and 1 tomato that are ahead of the pack. I am so thrilled by this.
It has been so long since I ate gardened food, I have forgotten just how amazing things taste when they are home grown. Like, words cannot capture the depth of flavor these have.
Garden Rat 