Garden Journal 2018 (June) Part 3 - I Saved The Best For Last ;0)

There is still a part of my garden I have to show you. Among these plants, there are again quite a few of my uncommon favorites...

Part Three

Welcome to part three of my gardening update for June. I already showed you which veggies I was growing outside in this post and which ones I was nurturing in the large greenhouse in this post.

As the month of June is coming to an end, it is almost time to launch the third edition of the SteemIt Community Garden Journal Challenge. I will do so sometime next week. Before that, I still wanted to show you another part of my veggie garden.

Under The Roof

Two years ago, I didn’t have a greenhouse yet. To make sure our tomato plants wouldn’t get sick because of having to be outside in the rain (spoiled little brats, remember?!), we built a roof over the beds placed against our toolhouse.

This year, those beds give shelter to three other plants.

This year, we chose to grow the small kind of cucumbers. And I’m glad we did: once again, the plant is extremely productive. It’s only June and we are already handing out cucumbers to everyone that comes over. Last year, it were the zucchinis, but this is obviously another cucumber year.

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On the other side of the bed is the ever so beautiful Cape Gooseberry. The plant is related to the Tomatillo, which we had last year. We decided not to grow it again, because we both hated the taste.

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The berries of the Cape Gooseberry are growing inside a similar papery ‘lantern’ (indicated by the red arrow in the picture above). The taste of the berries is not bad, but not very exceptional either... until you add a chocolate dip to the party. The combination of the berry and the chocolate is just... mmmm.

In between cucumber and the Cape Gooseberry; there is another first-timer: Chayote, also known as ‘Pear Squash’.

It’s a beautiful climber, and what makes it so special is that every part of the plant is edible: not only the fruit, but also the stem, the leaves, the seeds and even the tubers.

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Just like the fig leaf gourd I talked about in my previous post, this one is completely experimental. I don’t have a clue what it will taste like.
All I know so far is that it is a very stunning plant to look at.

The only thing that bothers me is that I might have made a mistake by not giving him more space to grow. It’s still early in the season, and the vines have already grown so long... I guess I’ll have to wait and see where it goes.

The Small Greenhouse

Next to the large greenhouse, there's also a small one which is actually a leftover from last year. Somehow it managed to survive winter, so I thought it would be a shame not to use it again. This one is so small, it can only fit two small raised beds.

One of the beds is almost completely taken by - yet another - tomato plant. If I'm not mistaking, this is another Gardener's Delight variety.

I just spotted the first set of yellow flowers, so there will surely be even more tomatoes in a couple of weeks.

In front of the plant, you can see a huge bush of basil (it's not the regular kind, but I can't remember how it is called). I've got all kinds of basil growing near every single tomato plant, since they are perfect companions.

Not only does basil improve the growth rate and flavor of tomatoes, it also repels whiteflies, aphids, mosquitoes and other insects that can harm your tomato plants. On top of that, it attracts bees, hereby improving pollination. You see, basil and tomatoes are a perfect match.


There’s barely some room left for one of last year’s discoveries: cucamelons.

This beautiful climber produces the cutest fruit you have ever seen: they look exactly like watermelons, but they have the size of a grape.
They taste like cucumber, but with a tinge of sourness. I really love them.

For some reason, all my cucamelon plants this year started off too slow. They should be a lot bigger than they are. They don’t really belong in a greenhouse, but I wanted to speed up the growth, so I put one of the plants in. And it worked: it has already grown a lot bigger than the ones I am growing outside, and yesterday I spotted the very first tiny cucamelon.

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I simply can’t wait until the plant is full grown and I can go pick those delicious little cucamelons.

In the other bed is just a plain - but delicious- sugarmelon. It’s growing fast, but I’m afraid I will have to pollinate it manually if I actually want it to grow melons.

Since there was some room left on the other side of the bed, I picked up a small pineapple melon in the garden center a couple of days ago.

It is still small, but with the weather that is heading our way, it will probably grow fast.

Front Yard

It took me two years to convince my girlfriend that our front yard was more than big enough to give room to some more veggies, and this year she finally gave in.

So I placed two square foot gardening beds to which I attached a trellis, and filled them with some more veggies.

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I know all plants look a little thirsty, but we're in the middle of a genuine heatwave here, and I'm waiting for sundown to water them, so no leaves would get burned by the sun.

In these beds, I'm growing:

• oxheart cabbages
• red Brussel's sprouts
• regular carrots
• rainbow carrots
• beetroot
• more cucumbers
• more melons
• fennel
• lettuce

I've added some useful companion plants to the mix, mainly to attract or repel instects:

• nasturtiums
• calendula
• dill
• tagetes flowers
• banana mint

This is the first time I'm using a real square foot bed, so this is a real try-out. I've already learned that cabbages are not fit to be grown in such a small space, lol.

Neither does zucchini. Fortunately, we realized that pretty soon: we moved it out and replanted it next to the square foot gardening beds, using an old tyre to give it a little height.

We don't really like zucchinis, but it is one of the plants that give you loads of harvest. In full season, you can harvest almost every day - that's why I keep planting it :-0)

Well, that's all folks. It has taken me 3 full-length posts to show you around. And while I'm posting, the plants keep growing at warp speed. If I look back on the first post, I can see so many things have changed already.

It won't take too long anymore for all veggiesto be at their best, which means there will be a lot to harvest, and eat.

I'll keep you up-to-date :0)

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