Last year, I started out strong, but really fell off near the end. The World Cup finals and then the birth of my son combined to keep me from doing as much in the garden as I should have. In the picture above, you can see okra in the front middle and back left. That's zucchini on the right, with sweet potatoes between them and butternut squash in front. The poles and cages indicate tomatoes.
I planted dill, parsley and borage and they all did fairly well. I was hoping for the chamomile and marigold from the previous year to self-seed. What I had thought to be a chamomile turned out to be a weed, but I did get one marigold plant:
Even though this was primarily an edible garden, there were some beautiful flowers. The okra is in the same family as the hibiscus:
The sweet potato is in the same family as the morning glory:
In addition to the ornamental salvias, I also had an ornamental pepper:
The borage flower is also nice:
Probably the best surprise of the year, though, was when butternut squash started growing out of my compost. I hadn't planned on growing this, but definitely enjoyed it in the garden and in the kitchen. One came up with my zucchini and I transplanted another one from the compost pile:
While not the year I had hoped, I did learn many valuable things. I'm going to plant more herbs from seed this year, and rely less on them self-seeding. Also, the okra and the vines of sweet potatoes and butternut squash did not work well in the limited spaces of this garden. The okra limited paths in and out of the garden and the vines spread to interfere with other plants. I'm going to have to find another place for them. This year, I will also increase the numbers of tomatoes and peppers to fill up the spaces left by the okra and others that get too big.
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