Raised bed gardening update

Two months ago, I shared photos and instructions about how we built a raised bed in our backyard. Since then, I've planted numerous seeds and transplants into the bed, including pumpkins, corn, tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini, sunflowers, watermelon, basil, and jalepeño peppers. We installed drip irrigation throughout the bed and draped some irrigation tubing into potted plants surrounding the bed, such as bell pepper, mint, strawberries, and another cucumber plant. It's turned into a lush urban jungle of plants out there, and I figured that those who don't follow my Facebook page would be curious to see what's been growing on!

Note: You can click on the photos for a larger view.

This was the bed shortly after planting seeds. I had a lot of other plants in pots around the edges.

I transplanted a few tomato plants that I purchased at different nurseries. Two of the plants are heirloom.

This is what the raised bed looked like in July, right before we left for a two week road trip to Portland, Seattle, and everywhere in between.

A bell pepper plant in a pot before we left for our trip.

We visited a lot of interesting places on our trip, including this treehouse near Seattle where we spent two nights! While we were away, my dad and sister visited our garden a couple times to make sure nothing was dying. 

This was what our garden looked like the day we returned from vacation! Amazing!

 We let this zucchini grow until it was 13'' long and 5'' wide! I plan on making stuffed zucchini with it tonight.

 So many leaves! I ended up cutting back at lot of the growth the other day (after this was taken) because many plants weren't getting enough sunlight.

 A cucumber and zucchini I picked last week.

I will try to post more regular updates on here about the garden so that the posts aren't so lengthy with photos! You can always follow my latest updates and photos on my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/greenbeangal/

And if you live in the San Jose area and like biking, please join me and some friends this Saturday for a Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition-sponsored ride to urban farms and orchards! The ride is from 10am - 1pm and we'll be visiting Garden to Table's Taylor Street Farm, a historic orchard, Veggielution, and learning a whole lot about the history and current advocacy work related to San Jose urban agriculture! Details and free tickets available here.

Thanks for reading,

Green Gal