Garden Gone Wild

*Garden gone wild and Sunflower Mania best describe my garden this summer. The perfectly organized garden plans I had sketched out in March are long gone from neat rows of lettuce and carrot to overgrown tomato plants that are now needing to be cut back and supported by twine. As the summer months passed I found myself squeezing more seeds into any empty soil space I could find with the result being an overgrown abundance of vegetables, flowers, fruits and herbs. The concept of Wide Row Planting was my goal, a garden design of planting 2 to 4 rows of vegetables side by side very close together. Whether you like your garden style inch by inch and row by row, or jungle style there really is no right or wrong, but simply unique and individual preferences. This summer I experimented with Heirloom sunflowers, tomatoes, carrots and newly planted pumpkins are on their way. Also squash, zucchini, lettuce, spinach, blueberries, strawberries, cucumbers, lots of herbs, etc.

My tomatoes are just now turning red due to the very cloudy summer in San Diego this year. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego has experienced the coldest July since 1933. My tomatoes can attest to that!

Here are some links to garden styles and finding the right design for your lifestyle and yard space.

* See Block Style Layout of Raised Planters with Colorado Master Gardeners Designs.

* Cottage Style Gardening: Informal and abundant planting style. A country look that fits into a small garden area. Front yard Cottage Garden Plan.

* Square Foot Gardening: Creating gardens in individual boxed raised planters. How to create a Square Foot Garden.

Vertical Gardening: Creating vertical supports to grow more vegetables and herbs in vertical spaces.

Thank you for visiting my garden blog: http://www.nadiaknows.com

Creating – Growing – Staying Inspired

Squash Varieties-White-Yellow-Green

Heirloom Carriage Pumpkins on the way...

Tomato plant

too many tomato plants per square inch!

Heirloom Sunflowers 7 feet tall

Birthday Sunflower

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

A flower for you on your birthday… How lucky I am to have you in my life…

A sunflower growing on the side of the road near my home this week.

July 10th, 2010

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

SUNFLOWERS & GIVING GARDENS

Gift on my doorstep: sunflowers and wine

Sunflower "expressing its perfect self"

A few months ago a friend surprised me with a bottle of wine and some sunflower starter plants on my doorstep and this weekend I got my first bloom.

The garden that keeps on giving is a great concept, one that I encourage and believe brings community closer together. The love of growing your own flowers and edibles are an amazing way to bring more beauty into your life and sharing them multiplies it 100 times over.

Here are a few links of amazing groups of people across the country volunteering to bring the Giving Garden concept to a whole new level.

*  ”The Giving Garden” blog: where volunteers work to grow food for others.

* The Giving Garden: Productive community garden.

* San Diego based school garden education: WBC: Teaching farming, gardening and healthy eating to the young.

* Solid Ground: Building community to end poverty.

With summer right around the corner this is a great time to look into volunteering with garden organizations and at the same time increase awareness of community needs. There are so many gardening tips and sage advice that can be picked up when hanging out with other gardeners.

Thank you for visiting today: http://www.nadiaknows.com

Grow – Create – Give

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