Garden Update

Snapped a few pics of my garden yesterday. As you can see, everything is doing quite well. I can harvest cilantro now and the basil's not too far behind. Made a salad yesterday and was able to use some of the stalks from the onions. Tasted a little more subtle than green onions.

Slight change of plans.

Good news: We bought a new house yesterday! Bad news: I'm going to have to leave some of my garden behind! Good news: The new house has a large fenced in back yard with plenty of shady AND SUNNY spots! Bad news: Not sure if my container plants will survive the move.

Most of my container plants are small and moveable - - right now. But by the end of next month, they're going to be larger and much harder to move. Time will tell.

Garden Update

Today I had planned on harvesting the remaining lettuce and planting new seeds. But as I was harvesting, I noticed swarms of tiny flying/hopping bugs and a few other larger bugs. The flying ones were ALL OVER the place. The dirt was pretty moist because it's in a semi-shaded area that's not getting much sun. So I decided after harvesting to just let the soil sit for awhile and see if the flying insects go away without anything to munch on.

My potato plants are drooping so badly that they're actually laying on the ground now. The stalks are about two feet high. I don't see any tubers above the ground though. Not sure what's going on there. I'm wondering if they're suffering from lack of sun.

The tomato plant in the ground is about 1/4 of the size of its sister plant in the container. I'm just going to keep watering it to see how the fruit turns out.

The cilantro and basil are really taking off, as is the cucumber plant which I thinned down to one.

The pepper plants and onions are trucking along.

First Harvest!

Harvested some of my leaf lettuce today! It actually looked like it could have been harvested a little earlier - - but the salad turned out pretty good! I was so proud of myself. :)

Garden Update

Basil and Cilantro taking their sweet time... but on May 10th, there was NOTHING there.

Green Pepper isn't doing too bad considering the cool temps we've had lately.



This is a jalapeno plant I got from a gal at work a couple of weeks ago. When she gave it to me, it was just a small seedling. It's grown pretty quickly. It's drooping because I just took the bottle off of it before snapping this pic. Hopefully the squirrels won't dig in it because it's getting too tall for the bottle and I don't have any more chicken wire for a cloche.



Speaking of which, I should take the cloche off of this tomato plant because it's getting too big for it. By the way, this plant is thriving in the container, whereas the other two that are in the ground, are not doing too well. They're half the size or smaller than this one. I believe they're not getting as much sun.




These are my cucumber plants which don't seem to be doing very well. The leaves look like they're being eaten but they're also yellow. I'm not sure if it's too much water or what. It's been raining A LOT lately. I've barely had to water at all the last two weeks because of all the rain. I don't see any bugs on them so I'm not sure what's going on. There are only two left because the one in the middle basically died so I got rid of it. Just going to keep an eye on these two...



Not sure what to think about these yellow onions either. They continue to get longer, and longer, and LONGER, but from what I read online, I'm not supposed to harvest them until fall. I'm thinking by then, they will have grown all over my deck! I may pick one soon just to see how big it is. That's the problem with root veggies. You can't tell what's going on under there!



This is my poblano pepper plant. It's gotten a lot more leaves and is almost as tall as its' cloche.



Last but not least, check out my potato plants!! They're HUGE. I've had to mound up dirt around their bases to cover any tubers because they like to poke out of the ground and if the sun hits them, they go bad. Kind of tricky. I've since learned that I should have planted them in a trench to start off with and then just gradually filled the trench with dirt.

My lettuce needs to be harvested and perfect timing too because I'm taking a salad to my mom's for Memorial Day tomorrow! FIRST HARVEST!!! Yippee!

Garden Update.

Potatoes have sprouted! See 'em? Yay!! They're growing FAST.



Ground tomatoes. They look small, but they have grown in just seven days.


Onions have gotten longer, and the poblano is doing fine.



Cucumbers have sprouted!!! Might end up thinning them out to just one plant. I hear they take over the world.



Container tomato - he's gotten bigger too. Took the other one out to prevent over-crowding.


Green pepper. I'm seeing growth in this one too.


Lettuce is looking good. I was wanting more of a romaine though and this is just looking like loose leaves. And I'm not quite sure when it's ready to pick/eat it. Hmm.

No sprouts yet with the cilantro or basil so I didn't take pictures of them. I did notice, however, that their containers were VERY DRY. I hadn't watered them in a couple of days and it showed. Guess I'm going to have to water those daily.

And the potatoes have all sprouted (some quicker than others) and are growing really quickly. Jim bought me some more dirt so I could start mounding around the stems. This needs to be done so the tubers don't see sunlight. If they do, it's not good - something about acid. Can't remember.

Making Cloches.

To keep the squirrels out, I made cloches using chicken wire. It took me about $8 and an hour to make six of them. They're kind of an eye sore but it's worth it to have piece of mind that the squirrels can't dig up my seedlings. (One year they totally ruined my potted basil.) They're pretty easy to make. All you need are wire cutters, leather gloves, and chicken wire. I can easily take them off to weed. When the plants get big enough, I'll toss the cloches and mulch around the stems using grass clippings and dried leaves.

Cucumbers, Poblano Peppers, Bell Peppers, Tomatoes, Basil, and Cilantro.

Been awhile since I posted. That's because we went on vacation over Spring Break and it was raining all last weekend. Finally - a dry Saturday so I can finish planting. But the weather forecast said heavy winds and storms starting around 1PM. So I booked it over to Lowe's at 9AM and picked some stuff up. Already had cucumber seeds from last month - was just waiting for late April to sow them. Just your basic average cucumber:


Last time I planted green peppers, I ended up with one, tiny, sad, little pepper that I couldn't even eat. I think the spot was too shady for them. They need full sun. Which I don't have. So I didn't go hog-wild with the pepper plants - I only bought two. HAD to have the Poblano! I eat tons of Mexican food and love stuffed pablano peppers. I'm the only one in the house that will eat them, but so be it. I also picked up a sweet bell pepper plant, and 4 tiny tomato plants. LOTS of different tomato plants to choose from so I went with the Better Boy variety as they are supposed to continuously produce fruit until the first frost:


I've had really good luck with sowing herb seeds outside, so I picked up some sweet basil and cilantro (again, very big in Mexican dishes):


I also picked up a new hose, a hose hanger, a hose sprayer, and some chicken wire (to keep the squirrels out). By the time I got home and unloaded the car and got started, it was 11AM. Time to prepare the pots since all of these things will be container plants. For the why on that, check out older posts. Thanks for the giant yellow planter, Mom!! LOVE it. :) Found some more containers in the garage. Didn't have to buy any new ones. Phew.


Turns out this is the hardest part of gardening. Preparing the pots. I had forgotten. Since my dirt is in HUGE bags in the wheelbarrow, I had to fill up a bucket and drag the dirt up the stairs to the pots. Took a long time. Erik kept me company:


After I got the pots filled, I planned out what I would plant where:

By now it's been a couple of hours and I'm getting pretty tired. I haven't planted yet and I haven't begun maintenance on the plants I'd planted before, like my onions:


...or my lettuce:


But I keep going and eventually get everything planted. At this point, I notice that I've got four tomato plants in that large yellow planter and they're supposed to be spaced at least 18" apart. So I decide to dig two up and plant them along the fence (where those Cannas bulbs were):


I figure they've got a shot there. Although it's a semi-shady spot, a large cherry tomato plant did really well there a few years ago. Worth a try! It'll actually be interesting to see which tomato plants grow better since they're the same exact plants just in different spots - one inground and another in a container. Time will tell.

Finally I was able to begin maintenance on my onions and lettuce. My onions are growing really quickly! I was surprised at how much they'd grown just a week after I had planted them. My lettuce is going a little slower. And my potatoes are still underground. Haven't sprouted at all yet - and it's been 3 weeks since I planted them. Not sure what's going on there... Anyway, I took off all the plastic bottles, put some more rocks in (mulch) and added broken-up egg shells around the lettuce containers to keep out slugs. Jim said he'd be surprised if slugs traveled that far to get to the lettuce in a container, but I'm thinking what else have they got to do??



By the way, check out Jim's fabulous job with the lawn this year. I can barely see the dirt!! When Erik started to whine later, he layed in it.



Jim's pretty sick today with a fever and a bad cold but he STILL helped me out today. He went to Ace and bought me another bag of dirt (took three 56lb bags to fill everything this year) AND he hung up my hose hanger!! What a guy!!!


By the way, our old hose was kaput. Plus I didn't like the roly-poly container holdy-thingie it was in. (Technical term.) Bugs loved to hide in there and the hose always got tangled up. So I went from this:


....to this:


However, it turned out to be just as much of a pain in the butt as the other one. And I wish I'd gotten the more expensive hose 'cause this one kinks up a lot even though it's "kink resistant." But I AM really proud of my nozzle:


Funny story too. Another gal was looking at the many hoses and nozzles at Lowes and we started talking about how confused we were with all the choices. (She got the better hose but I got the better nozzle.) I chose it because out of all the nozzles, it's box was the most empty. And now I know why. Instead of a trigger to release the water, it has a thumb switch. NO MORE TIRED HANDS! And when I was watering my plants, I really loved that I didn't have to press that trigger forever. Just flip the switch and you're good to go. So next time: I'LL GET A BETTER HOSE. But I'm keepin' my nozzle.

Here's what my deck looks like right now:


With the exception of sowing more lettuce and cilantro seeds later (and possibly onions), I'm done until I plant garlic in the fall. I'll update as the plants grow bigger. One more picture though - - of my homemade wooden fence around my non-existent potatoes. I'm pretty proud of it! I recycled branches that we trimmed at our house and from my mom's poor lilac tree. (RIP)

Potatoes and Onions

Planted my potatoes yesterday. We've got some unseasonably warm weather right now - yesterday it got up to 85! I only planted about 8 of the tubers that I had since I had a space about 5'x2' and the rows are supposed to be 4' apart! I gave them a good drink and then covered them up with a mulch made up of old leaves and grass clippings.



The lettuce is sprouting! (You can see some in one of the pictures above...) I've still got seeds and a little bit of room left in one of the planters. I'm having a hard time collecting enough plastic 2 ltr bottles to put over the top of them. But I figure staggering the plantings will be a good thing. Lettuce doesn't like hot sun, so I figure I'll get another few "heads" before the July heat starts.

Started planting onions today. Used a large terra cotta planter on the deck - but once again ran out of bottles before I got the entire thing planted. So I guess I'll stagger those too.

Jim had chopped down some branches to give the backyard some more sun this summer and I had all of these twigs laying around. So I made my own little garden fence around the potatoes. Turned out pretty cool!