I can't believe another week has gone by. I ended up in overtime at work, something that very rarely happens, so my little garden has been a bit neglected lately. Still, here's an update.

The biggest news is that I somehow managed to plant a cucumber seedlings in the row of squash and zucchini seedlings. I think it's a cucumber plant, anyway. It's flowering, even! I'm not quite sure how they got mixed together (I thought it was just a weird growing zucchini plant for awhile!), and even more, I'm not quite sure why the cucumber seedling in the pretty crappy clay soil, that likely got it's roots disturbed pretty well when I planted it, is growing WAY faster than the cukes that are in an SWC, where they were direct-seeded.


I'm still going back and forth on what to do with it. I want to leave it alone, because it's doing so well, but it's sitting right in front of my front door, where there's really nowhere to trellis it.

This is the biggest zucchini. Or crookneck squash. One of the two. Apparently I was drunk when I was planting this row, so I won't be placing bets on the veggies that will grow out of these plants! I'll do a much better job labeling things next year.



Tomatoes are still going strong!

Amish Paste


Bonny Best


Campari


Lida (Ukranian)


Pink Ponderosa (first appearance on the blog - first fruit on the plant!)


Illini Star (also a first appearance on the blog/first fruit.)


Tamina, still fruiting like gangbusters, but no ripe ones yet.

And this is what happened to the mutant flower that turned into the mutant tomato. I finally took pity on the poor thing and let the little princess yank it.


I put some of my tomato plants that were still waiting on buckets, into the ground. Maybe what I thought was crappy clay soil is actually decent stuff, based on what that cucumber is doing! I think I have about 10 more, but I keep going back and forth on where to put them, so there are a couple out by the street, a couple by the driveway, and a couple on the OTHER side of the driveway, by the slowly-getting-smaller pile o' mulch. It'll be a little experiment, so I'll know where I want to put everything next year.

I also got my Amish Pie Pumpkin seedlings into a hill of mostly composted manure, and they seem to be very, very happy there. Next up are the watermelon seedlings, and the rest of the tomatoes.

It's been hot and humid, but not a lot of rain this past week. This week, every day has a slight chance for rain, so hopefully that'll get some of these guys going!

Sunday Garden Update

Whew - it is HOT outside! It's been pretty toasty all week, and we got up to 90 today. BEFORE Memorial Day. I still haven't plugged in the air conditioning units yet...holding out until it's desperately necessary! (I came REALLY close today.) It's days like these that I wish that I had a fenced in yard. A privacy fenced-in yard. Preferably behind my house, because my across-the-street neighbor is on a hill that's probably 25 feet above my house, so there wouldn't be much privacy in the front. And then I'd need all the trees in the backyard down. Because I'd like to garden in my swimsuit, with the sprinkler going.

A girl down the street lays in her front yard in her swimsuit while her kids play, and she is in a much higher trafficked area than my part of the street. Still, she's laying, not moving around. I can't wait until Memorial Day finally gets here, so the pool at the gym will open up and I can start to even out my farmer (gardener?) tan.

And in unrelated news, I somehow came in contact with poison ivy. I'm not sure if it was from my yard or not, although I did get it last year. I am a part-time mail carrier, and I thought one of the boxes had something that looked poison ivy-ish to me on it the other day. Add the big patches of welts to the massive amount of mosquito bites I ALWAYS get, and I always scratch them until they bleed, and my arms and legs look like I have the bubonic plague. No wonder I don't have a boyfriend. I have been using calamine lotion and hydrocortisone like crazy, but it just feels SO much better when I'm scratching it. I won't be able to get to the doctor until Wednesday at the earliest, but if it's still bad by then, I'm begging for a prescription.

Anyway, the garden has been kicking into high gear, loving this deliciously hot weather. Here are some highlights -


My sugar snaps, on the whole, are pretty anemic looking, but they were kind of an afterthought this year (since the squirrels stole the first round that I planted), and they're in the worthless front bed, just because I wasn't quite sure where to put them, and I wasn't quite sure if I should just let that bed lasagna itself, or attempt to grow something in the lasagna. I think they're anemic looking because it's probably pretty hot in root-land. Still the ones that have survived are flowering and producing. These two pods didn't even make it inside the house.


The zucchini plant is growing like gangbusters. The crookneck squash plants next to it around growing as tall, but they look like they're going to start flowering soon. They only have maybe 4 true leaves, so it seems strange to me that they'd be flowering already. One of the vendors at the farmer's market had baby crookneck squash for sale today, so maybe it's just a result of the weather.

Yes, the yard behind it is a mess. My lawnmower broke this week. And the kids' toys are EVERYWHERE. And the front yard is a work-in-progress that likely won't be finished until next year. Slow and steady...


Now that I have sluggo'd the bean bed, the garden beans and soybeans are coming along nicely. I can't wait to make fresh edamame instead of the frozen stuff!

And in tomato news, we have an explosion of growth.

Amish Paste

Tommy Toes

Lida Ukranian

The unknown with the first fruit. My best guess is that this is another Tamina, because it's got the same potato leaves, and is fruiting at the same time. Seems like I ended up with more Tamina plants than anything else. Hope they taste good!

Campari

Tamina

This was one of those weird blooms that looked like a bunch of flowers fused together. It's now growing a mutant tomato. I know some people just pick these off to allow for the rest of the plant to use the energy to make regular fruit, but it's kind of fun to watch something out of the ordinary.

On the agenda for this week:

Get the rest of the 20ish tomato plants into the ground. (I can't ever seem to catch the bakery when they have buckets, so I'm just going to hope that I can grow these guys in the ground.) I've never been successful with in-ground tomatoes, only container plants. We'll see how it goes.

Transplant the Amish Pie Pumpkin seedlings to their permanent home.

My Jack be Little Seedlings are also up, and they need to move to their permanent home for the season as well. I'm thinking I'm going to trellis those on a cattle panel, since they are small, with luffa on the other side. The cattle panel will wait for another day.

I want to try to get my hands on a rhubarb rhizome somewhere locally, since I know it can't be harvested in it's first year. I figured I'd let it go this year so I can be eating it next year. I also want to get some ollas to try with my in-ground plants, since I've been watering like crazy and my rainwater harvesting system is likely going to have to wait until next year. Our area isn't exactly known for it's variety of gardening stuff, so I think I'll end up doing a scavenger hunt in Atlanta when I head down there in July.

It's supposed to be a relatively dry week, but staying toasty. I brought my worm bin inside, because I'm worried about them getting cooked. They got their first watermelon rind today, and are in worm heaven.

May 16th Update

Yesterday, the weathermen, er, weatherPEOPLE, were all freaking out and saying that we were going to have massive storms, hail, flooding, the end of times! I don't know if the problem is that our stations cover such a wide viewing area, or if our weather people are just not good at their jobs (I am reminded by the horrible predicting...and not predicting...of snow this past winter), but when you are a gardener, you rely on relatively accurate weather predictions. If the weather calls for rain, I'm not wasting tap water on my plants.

So, I worked eight hours on Saturday, and kept hearing the weatherman on the radio predicting scattered, isolated storms. Having worked in radio, I know that the weather predictions for the weekend are taped sometime on Friday, so the taped weather prediction couldn't see the not-a-cloud-in-the-bright-blue-sky weather that happened all of Saturday afternoon. I guess the storms, if there were any, were very scattered, and isolated to areas outside of our county.

I picked up the kids from the babysitter and we decided to play in the yard for awhile. At about seven, there were a couple of rumbles of thunder, four drops of rain....aaaand that's about it. I was kind of annoyed, since I've got plants in the clay that gets scary after a day or two of 90 degree heat with no rain. (I think there were reports of hail two counties away. So technically, they were right, but maybe they don't realize that most of their audience lives close to the city.)

This morning, it was kind of dreary looking outside. We have a 1st birthday party to go to at a playground today, and the little one's mom said we'd be partying rain or shine. (My fifth birthday party was at a park, and I distinctly remember pretend 'fishing' with a stick off the edge of the pavilion, where the water was puddling up. Such is an outdoor birthday in Florida in the afternoon on any given day.) I was hoping, for her sake, since this is her first child, and your first child's first birthday is a big deal to you as a mom, that it wouldn't rain. On the other hand, I was hoping that rain would fall at some point, so my plants would be happy.

We just got about an hour's worth of a good, steady rainfall. We'll bring a few old towels to the playground, to mop off the slides for the kids, but all will be well in party land, and all is well in garden land as well. Here's some proof -

Tomatoes are still going strong.

Tamina (two different plants)





The unknown first tomato...


...now has some company higher up on the plant.



Lida


Campari



Tommy Toes, making the first appearance on my blog.


Cucumbers, with their new mulch.


Remember that double dug "bed" for my squash? Here's what they look like now that they've been mulched.


Peppers

Orange Bell is growing a few flowers!!

Tomatoes are Taking Off!

They deserved a whole post to themselves, really. (Plus, it takes me entirely too long to upload the pictures!) Here's the tomato update for the week -

Remember the very first tomato from last week? Here's what she looks like now.


I don't know why I call pepper plants "he" and tomatoes (just the fruit, not the plants) "she", but, well, it's what I do. ;)

The early flowers from the other tomatoes are popping out into fruit as well. And these, I actually know what they are! (Will label better next year. Will label better next year. Will label better next year.)
Lida, from the Ukraine. Received from wintersown.org.


Campari (heirloom)

These are Tamina, also received from wintersown.org, on three different plants, in three different containers.

The two biggest plants, thus far, Bonny Best on the left and the unknown with the first fruit on the right, in my Home Depot self-watering containers. (They were made last year, before I learned that I could get buckets for free from the grocery store.)


I'm really, really, really hoping for a first ripe tomato by Memorial Day. Think they'll make it?

May 5th Garden Update

Has this been the world's weirdest Spring, or what? Bitterly cold winter, a week's worth of 70 degree weather, then alternating hot, cold, hot, cold. Hey, Mother Nature, Spring is supposed to be IN BETWEEN hot and cold.

The good news is, the garden is in full swing. I've got dirty fingernails 3-5 times a week, and I'm loving it.

Here's what things are looking like now...

I went ahead and started watermelon seeds. Yes, I'm dumb. But I leave 'em under a big clear plastic tub that is propped up slightly, so that it has to get pretty hot in there for air to be escaping out the bottom. This seems to have made the little melon seeds happy. These are Sugar Baby. The Ali Babas, for whatever reason, just haven't come up yet.



The hugelkultur raised beds, for lettuces (and some celery in the corners), and I transplanted Swiss Chard in the one where the lettuce was simply refusing to germinate...well, I'm not all that convinced on these things yet. I think all the wood underneath makes the soil drain way too fast, and maybe that's why things aren't growing quickly.

The red lettuces aren't doing much either. :(



I know that the rule with cucumbers is to direct seed them, but I was going back and forth on where their permanent home would be. So, I started them in cups, and finally moved them to a self-watering container, and they seem to be adjusting just fine. This variety is Japanese Long.

I found luffa gourd seeds at Target, of all places. I still haven't figured out where their permanent home is going to be, so they are stuck in their cups for the time being.

The blueberries are starting to form fruit - woohoo! This is my first year trying blueberries, and, given the prices at the grocery store, I think I'm going to get a few more plants for next year, and try them in the ground rather than in containers. Rumor has it that they like Tennessee clay soil?



I moved my Stevia plant inside. For whatever reason, I think it's safer in here.


I've got three pepper plants this year - Sweet Banana Pepper, Jalapeno, and Orange Bell. I've got California Wonder seeds from last year, and I'm debating whether or not it's too late to get one started. I'm not a huge pepper person, and neither are my kids, but I do love a good fajita in the summer.

This is Jalapeno, in a bucket.


And Orange Bell, in a self-watering container. He was planted in there AFTER I found out that peppers are into dry soil. Too late now, and he really doesn't seem to mind that much.



And now, my precious babies, the tomatoes. Three of my plants are in bloom, and baby fruits are forming on a couple of them. Here are the biggest plants - Bonny Best on the left, and Tamina on the right.



Tamina flowering

So is Bonny Best

And Amish Paste

And the first fruit of the season, on an unknown tomato plant. (I try my hardest to keep things labeled, but, you know, I'm not really known for my organizational skills.)




Speaking of tomatoes, look at how many I have left to pot up. Yikes. The grocery store never seems to have buckets when I stop by. And since I'm stopping by practically every day, this has started to become annoying. I think I might end up having to bite the bullet and buy more Rubbermaids, and do things that way. We'll see.


So, still lots to do around here...making more SWCs, potting up tomatoes, finding locations for different things, double digging the beds around the house to hopefully house the beans, squash, and pumpkins. Hopefully the weather doesn't get crazy hot, so I can get some of this accomplished before it's too late!