one for the mouse, one for the crow, one to rot and one to grow

yesterday i spent mony a weary nibble laying out my plans for the garden. i tried to use companion planting principles whenever possible, like planting carrots and basil around tomatoes, throwing in lots of patches of radishes since practically all plants supposedly like radishes, and interplanting peas/pole beans with corn and sunflowers so the vines can use the stalks as natural trellises. i might even plant some squash with the peas and corn just to have a spot of “three sisters.” it gets confusing trying to sort out who’s friends and enemies and then space them accordingly. extra tricky since i’m working with small spaces, i have to squish everything together and hope they play nice.

this is the creek bank--for mapping purposes i chopped it into three segments, so these are all one long piece, not three separate rows.

and the raised bed. the left side is already planted and growing, right side is waiting for me to make up my mind.

the list of container plants on that last map is already out of date as of today. i picked up a few herbs and flowers to finally plant the teacup planter...

i was going to use all tisane herbs but somehow that limitation crippled my ability to plant anything at all, so i did away with it.

i planted my caterpillar container with prickly caterpillar today. it’s a crazy-looking novelty plant i got from seed savers exchange.

elephant container is full of parsley...

blueberry bushes are already blooming...

lots of baby strawberries...

radishes are a couple weeks away...

nasturtiums seem happy enough...

oregano is on steroids...

peas are enjoying the old aluminum knitting needles i gave them to climb on...

and even my lettuces are doing well. for some reason i’ve never had much luck growing leafy veggies, so this is encouraging.

i picked some lettuce for a salad (which turned into a sandwich after the photo). i also threw in some dandelion greens and petals--the petals are light and sweet and delicious, almost like honeysuckle.