Chapter 30: Wordless Wednesday--Green

Birthday Chacos and my favorite McCoy Pottery flower pot.

Chapter 29: Garden update: First Harvest

 

We have had our first harvest of 2012! 

This little yellow crookneck squash was not ready on Thursday but was a little bit over-ready when I picked it on Saturday.  They grow so fast! There are 2 more on the vine that will be ready in no time.  The zucchinni squash bushes are big and nice and green but I'm worried they are going to start smothering the hot peppers.  I don't really care for either one of those plants, but Daniel likes them and I don't mind zucchini bread so I make sacrifices to be a good little wife :)

The cucumbers are finally starting to take off but now I don't remember which 2 are pickling vines and which 2 are slicing.  Hopefully I have it noted someplace. I can't wait to be snacking on my own cucumbers.  There is nothing like it in the world.

The tomatoes in the garden were doing so well but then they had little black bugs all over them and the leaves on one bush started to look like they had a fungus. Now they just keep looking worse and worse it seems to be spreading.  I harvested our first red tomato today and it was sort of brown and rotted at the top. It's really disheartening after last year's tomato FAIL. But the 3 bushes in the pot on the back deck are still doing very well (knock on wood), so hopefully I will get to can my own tomatoes yet later this summer. I hope I can figure out a way to save the current tomatoes still.

As for my giant bell pepper....it is refusing to turn red. I'm not sure if it's just not ready or if I got tricked into buying plants that will just stay green.  Only time will tell.

I finally pulled up a bunch of the first round of lettuce.  It was really quite cute the way they had bolted up so that some of them looked like little lettuce trees but the leaves had turned bitter so up they came.  We have a second round growing that I think will be our last until the fall.  We'll plant more then PLUS try carrots again.  I have 2 random carrot plants that finally decided to grow and I'm determined to grow a bunch when cool weather kicks in.

It has been HOT HOT HOT the past week with no rain in sight.  I have been watering every morning to keep everything alive.  Rain would be a wonderful gift about now. Definitely don't want a repeat of last year.

Overall I'd say the garden is doing ok this year.  I'd give it a solid B or B- at this point.

Chapter 27: It's Alive! A Garden Update

Time for a garden update!  Quick and dirty just for my future reference plus a few questions. And clearly  I had the iPad turned the wrong direction when taking my photos.

The tomatoes are doing pretty well but a few are starting to get these cruddy leaves and I'm not sure why. Hmmm

Strawberry patch! Glad we have the kind that keep producing instead of just one harvest.

BASIL! I'm so proud of this year's basil. This is my best attempt so far. It's definitely Pesto-Time.

Best lettuce crop so far as well.  We are going to have to start eating more salad to keep up.

Daniel bought me a Fuscia at Lowe's the first spring we were dating because we walked by and I exclaimed how pretty it was so he made me let him buy it for me :)  I've gotten another one every spring since and hung it on the front porch and killed it every year.  This year I moved it out back where I actually remember to water it and it's on it's 2nd or third batch of blooms!  I get to look at it more than I would if it was out front too.

I'm still shocked at how well these three tomato plants are doing.  I really did not expect the spindly little sprouts to survive, let alone be thriving the way they are!

Still have Poppies from Daniels' Grandma :)

My little patch of volunteer petunia's is getting big and blooming like crazy! It has lots of weeds around it because I refuse to mow it over so I have to be careful mowing around it.

The cucumbers are still really stunted but they are starting to climb a little.

Sweet little Yellow Squash

I was told I could trellis the zucchini and squash. I think that might have been a terrible falsehood.

I had to stop Daniel from picking this one. I practically threw myself in front of him screaming, "IT HAS TO TURN RED FIRST!!!!!!" This bad boy is going to be delicious!

What's that?  A tiny little soy bean pod waiting to become my Edamame?  Oh yah.

The pumpkin was doing GREAT until we left for the weekend and it got a tiny bit crispy.  Will have to do lots of watering this week to make up for that little mishap.

Also, it's kitten season.  Luna chased a little and mama kitty out from behind the shed this morning so animal control brought by a trap to see if we can catch 'em. Fingers crossed.  It didn't work last time we tried.

Chapter 23: Garden surprises make me happy

I have volunteer petunias coming up all over the place. In a pot for the 2nd year in a row as well as all around the new 4x10 raised bed! Those are the biggest surprise and they put such a smile on my face. We also finally have some poppies blooming from seeds we got for Christmas from Daniel's grandmother. They came from her own garden so they are extra special just like our blackberry bush from her house. It's FULL of green blackberries. I see cobbler in our future.

Life is good.

Chapter 20: How Does Your Garden Grow?

No silver bells or pretty maids but there are lots of hot peppers! It's May Day and everything I had planned to put in the garden is already there. That's definitely a first. Two years ago I was scurrying to get as much planted as I could the first weekend in May before Daniel and I left for Memphis to go to Memphis in May. Last year was 3 weeks pre-wedding so that's pretty much a blur and I really don't remember what I had planted but it wasn't anywhere near being finished since it never did get finished all summer.

I tried to prepare as much as possible in advance this year. I spent evenings at Tanglewood with my map of the gardens and many cold afternoons on my couch with my seed catalogs and some new gardening books.


This year we did a major over-haul l even bigger than we did the year's before. We didn't double the square footage like we did every other year. In fact it's a bit smaller. But we did move the beds in the back yard to the side of the house so that they will all be together and we're planning to add a nice little picket fence around it all to keep out the critters and the hooligans. We have already had a problem with someone helping themselves to our pile of dried bamboo that I plan on making trellises with. What is WITH people?

Despite the rocky start to the trellises I have high hopes for the garden this year! We are having some additional guttering and a downspout added to the middle of the side of the house so we can have an extra rain barrel and I've added some drip irrigation lines. Hopefully it will help us combat any crazy hot, dry weather we might have like last year.

This is what we have planted this year:

Bed #1 (4'x10')
--Lots of Lettuce
--Some Cabbage from the neighbor
--4 Cucumbers (2 pickling 2 slicing)
--2 Zucchini
--1 Yellow Squash
--2 Giant Jalapeño
--2 Regular Jalapeño
--Random peppers from our friend Matthew that I lost the label for and don't remember what it is. So let's call it pepper surprise
--Lots of Dill

Bed #2 (2'x10')
--2 Rows of Strawberries (We've already harvested a few!

Bed #3 (Maybe 3.5'x20 who the heck knows. It's cinder blocks. It's slightly ghetto. But there are marigolds planted in the wholes in the cinder blocks for a nice border. Anyway...)
--1 Pumpkin
--2 Watermelons
--5 Tomatoes (for canning, not slicing)
--Rosemary
--2 Soy Beans (for edamame)
--Huge Oregano
--Lots of Basil
--Green Onions
--Yellow Onions
--Garlic

PLUS
--2 Blackberry Bushes
--2 Blueberry Bushes
--1 Raspberry Bush (the 2nd died)
--Big Lemongrass Bunch

I'm probably missing some things but I think it will be a pretty good variety and I'm looking forward to doing lots of harvesting and canning and EATING this summer!

Chapter 19: iPad Blogging Step - Blogger

Trying out the Blogger Application. It's showing up all tiny on the screen so I'm guessing it's really an iPhone App. The keyboard is way too small to type much comfortably.

So this one is probably not going to be my first choice but it IS free. It also looks pretty easy to post photos that are ON the iPad. Let's try it and see!

Chapter 7: In which a computer error at Lowe's makes my day

I usually don't buy plants at full price. I wait for the people at Lowe's or Home Depot or wherever to pretty much kill them and then put them on the "Almost Dead" rack. Then I pay 25cents for them and either nurse them back to health or I finish the job and they end up in my compost heap.

Yesterday was the first time in ages that I'd been to Lowe's because a) I would definitely kill anything new that I planted in this heat just as I killed 99% of the plants already on my deck in the past few weeks and b) I just really didn't need to be spending money on more plants. I have a birthday party to prepare for, people! But because of said birthday party it really IS time to fix the running toilet.

A plumber friend at church offered months ago to fix it if I'd just go buy a "Tank to Bowl Kit." OK. I can do that. If there is something called a kit and all I have to do is ask for it at Lowe's I'm golden. I was even more excited to realize that such a kit is less than $5! The teenage boy in the plumbing section even said it was a one-size situation. Even better! But I'm cautious (ok, paranoid) about that kind of thing so I asked him "Are you SURE this will fit any size toilet?" and he returned from asking another employee with the answer "Probably, but maybe not." Instead of buying both sizes and returning the one that doesn't fit, I decided I'd let my plumber friend come look at my toilet and tell me which to get. At which time I will go get the correct size while he takes apart my ancient toilet. Problem solved; now it's time to go look at the crispy plants!

So while I was checking out a very meager selection, Daniel was noticing that a particular section of plants was swarming with butterflies and bees while none of the other plants were getting much attention. Since he was getting really excited about the butterfly bushes and we had a disappointing showing around the garden this summer when it came to the precious little pollinators I suggested we get one. The big sizes were marked to $16.95 or something like that but the smaller ones didn't have a price anywhere. So another high school boy/Lowe's employee came along to get us a price check.

And it rang up as $1.91.
"Did you say $11.91," I asked skeptically.
"Nope," says another high school boy. "They're $1.91."
"....."
"DANIEL! Get 3 more!"

Four plants for less than what one of them probably should have cost! That is the kind of thing that makes me just giddy.

Because I might have someone out to grind up a stump right where they'll be going they aren't planted yet but here they are patiently awaiting their new home.So pretty!

My photography skills leave a little to be desired and they're pretty small not but THIS is what they WILL look like.
And they have a really fast growth-rate. We were at some friends' house for a party last night and coincidentally they had a butterfly bush in their yard that they bought last year. When they planted it it was a foot tall. now it's about 6 feet.

I also finally remembered to go to the park and pick up a few horse apples for decoration. I have meant to do that every year for 3 years and I finally remembered!


Saturday was a pretty dandy day!