Pictoral Update

I thought I'd share a pictoral update of the gardening's happenings... The SFG. Currently growing in the back row: spearmint; 3 squares bush beans; 3 squares okra; fresno chili. Front row: cherry tomato; 1/2 a square bush beans; failed carrots; marigold; empty square; okra; failed broccoli; bell pepper. After pulling the broccoli and carrot tops, I'll have 3 empty squares in the front row, but none next to each other. I think I'll leave them empty until the end of September since I don't know what to put in them this late in the game... My last broccoli plant. The one plant in my garden actually enjoying the cool weather we had, and it bolted in yesterday's 95 degree heat. I'll pull it this weekend. My first okra bloom. Sadly, it's already wilting, and won't open. I think it just petered out because of the cool weather... No worries though! See the other buds waiting to open? My third RB. The sweet potatoes are at the back, and I planted the watermelon seedlings this morning. Our plum tree, and a plum DH plucked on Sunday. The plums are really starting to fall off the tree now, so we're going to try getting as many off this weekend as possible. I have NO idea what I'll do with them, so I'll have to look up a few recipes. One of my Yolo pepper plants practically *bursting* with baby peppers now. I found this little guy this morning protecting my beans. Hopefully he'll stick around for a while to eat the aphids and whatever else has been putting holes in my leaves (I suspect grasshoppers). The only thing I saw in his web was an enormous mosquito--but that's a good catch too! Since moving here, I've seen so many different kinds of spiders I'd never seen in VA. I tried to identify him, but I hate hate HATE spiders, and couldn't stand looking at the different pics for long at all before getting all creeped out!

Bugs, Beans, and Maybe Bings

I've been frustrated this weekend with the bugs who seem to enjoy my bush beans... I removed around 10 leaves containing leafminers, squashed numerous black flies which I'm told by the pest people over at Garden Web are aphids, and now I think the birds are pecking at my new baby green beans. I was checking out my broccoli, and discovered this little guy on the underside. I think he's the same worm as the one I discovered last week. I took the leaf off because there are signs of leafminer larvea. I borrowed the book, Garden Insects of North America, and think the two worms are cabbageworms, so bye-bye green wormy. I'm beginning to grow impatient with my broccoli, and am tempted to pull them up so I can use the spaces for something I know will be successful this summer. I won't know if they've bolted until the crown starts to develop (I just don't know how else to tell), and they just seem to be taking forever! Probably because they just can't take the heat... I'll give them another few weeks. They have until my radishes are ready for picking, then I will probably replace them with okra--or more green beans, depending on how the existing okra are doing (they're behind the broccoli in the pic below). Look at how the broccoli plants go from shortest to tallest, left to right. I think this is because the shade cover I made isn't protecting the one on the left very well in the afternoon (the sun moves from right to left over the sfg). On the plus side, the bean and carrot seeds I sowed to replace the first failed carrots have sprouted. I'm not concerned with the beans growing but I'm still holding my breath for the carrots. The existing 4-6 carrots are doing well, and the foliage is filling in on top. I'm sooo tempted to pluck one to see how they grow, but I want to eat the grown carrots more teehee. I used the last bit of hardware mesh I had, and quickly made a cage to cover my baby green beans. I'm hoping that what is going at them are the birds, and this will keep them out... The last bug for today is a new species my 7yo created. It's a Combee, and is a beneficial bug that lives in the rainforest. His class is finishing up learning about bugs, and his last project of the year was to create a new species of bug. I felt it only appropriate to add this bug to today's blog. ;-) I wanted to end with an upbeat picture. This weekend, I noticed we have a cherry tree in our yard! Our landlord never mentioned it, and when we moved in last year it had finished bearing fruit. I don't know if we'll get to eat any cherries since they're about 12 feet up, but we'll see! I'll get back to you next time about the variety...

Update on the Garden (I have picturitis)

Wahoo! After this post, I'll finally be up-to-date with the going on's of my little slice of growing things... A lot of pictures below, but I can't help it! I'm proud of my plants for working so hard. Feel free to click on the pictures for their full size versions. I love this picture... My LO is *so* good about not touching any of momma's plants. He walks up to them, shakes his head, points, and walks away... so cute! This isn't the most current pic (taken 5/7) of my onions and beans, but I love it because it shows how perfectly the AC unit shades my onions in the afternoon. I bought 2k ladybugs a few weeks back to get an aphid outbreak on the plum tree under control. They did a great job. Here is one of the baby's on the side of the deck turning into an adult ladybug. *Definitely* click on this one! Here's a more current picture (5/13) of the left side of my SFG. It just tickles me how straight up the bean leaves are in the afternoon sun. Unfortunately, my 3 rows of carrots bit it. Well, actually the only ones still alive are 8 that I remembered to add vermiculite to when I planted the seeds. I know it's not the right time for them, but I replanted more carrots in the 3rd square in front. I added vermiculite to each hole with the seeds and will be more dillegent about keeping them moist--especially with this weekend's temp's getting into the 90's. In the 1st front square, I planted a cherry tomato *gasp*. That's right, folks. Me, a non-tomato fan, am growing a tomato plant! I went to a Master Gardener's class two weekends ago, and they gave me a Cherry Tomato baby. I know *nothing* about tomatoes but no worries. I'll be doing some reading soon. And the left side (5/13) of the SFG... My okra and peppers are loving the heat, and my broccoli are doing surprisingly well (thus far, but praying the 90's don't bolt them). Shading them in the afternoon has been very helpful. My peppers, marigolds, and basil. My basil is so tiny because I took so long to thin them out. This is also my 2nd round. None of the seeds germinated the 1st round, so I started over with a lot more seeds... I finally remembered to look at the type of hot pepper I'm growing... Here are the first blooms on my Fresno Chili plant. Boy Wonder picked this out for Daddy because Daddy *loves* spicy food. These are the 3 broccoli I kept in the salad table. They enjoy the shade too. I don't have the greatest shade setup here, so I'm using an empty pot to keep the sheet from smooshing the plants. These guys are all that's left in my table--again, because I started too late... My canteloupe have finally started to grow. It was touch and go for a while for the front left plant. I had to cover it with an empty container at night, and that seems to have done it well. See the baby leaf in the middle?

Ah, yes. My pride and joy... This is my Dwarf Meyer Lemon. I was so extatic when I saw this! If you've ever tasted a Meyer Lemon, you'll understand where my joy comes from. They aren't sour/tart like Eureka or Lisbon lemons--those are the standard store-bought kind... They have this sweet, perfumy smell and flavor, and you can almost eat them like an orange. It's in a 5 gallon nursery pot right now, and the guy I bought it from at Western Garden Nursery said I should be able to keep in the pot for a year, then pot-up to the one I have it resting in.

Lastly, here is a view of the whole "garden." I took out most of my strawberry plants from the window boxes because they weren't being pollinated by bees, so the berries were tiny. I also planted these before I read about them, so I didn't plant them correctly and they ended up having a few issues. I kept the healthiest two which I replanted in the bottom box. I just want to see how they grow, and see if I can overwinter them successfully in the garage. I already have plans for next spring for a 4'x4' raised bed for strawberries--but that's a TOTALLY different post for another time! In the top box I planted some pretty groovy looking snapdragons and verbena. I used to have the "If I can't eat it, I'm not growing it" mentality, but my first season of gardening has taught me that having flowers around is quite beneficial. They help keep the bad bugs (blasted aphids) away, and attract the beneficial pollinator bugs (yay bees & butterflies). Hope you've enjoyed my garden update! Cheers.

From Eyesore to Garden in Under a Week

When Hubby found this home for us to rent, one of the appealing features was the large plot of dirt begging for someone to plant something in it. I don't remember how I came across the idea, but after we moved in, I started making plans for putting in a few raised Square Foot Garden (SFG) beds. We moved here last August, so I knew I would have a few months to let the dreams and plans dance around in my head (that was before I found out that I can actually garden *year round*). Unfortunately, there's a reason why that section of the back yard is a large plot of dirt. Once I started paying attention to how the sun hit our yard, I realized our neighbors' four very large pine trees prevent any sun from getting to that plot of dirt. Doh! My dreams of a large vegetable and berry garden were dashed. So, after I removed the three severely "pruned" rose bushes in the back yard, and we decided to stay in this house for a few more years, I remembered the Square Foot Gardening Book on my shelf, and the gears started turning in my head again! "Wahoo! I can put in a raised bed!" Out came the measuring tape. 2 feet wide by 8 feet long, with room to spare along the AC unit and between the raised bed and wall of the house. "Perfect!!!" That's enough for 16 squares of bountiful veggies, Babieeeeee! In less than a week, my section of garden went from this: To this: Isn't she pretty?!?!?! Here are a few pictures of the steps taken in building my SFG... In the SFGing book, Mel Bartholomew says a raised bed 6 inches high should be enough to grow most vegetables in. After seeing how much, and how quickly my soil settled in my salad table, I decided to go with 10 inches in height. Also, I had my Tool Man Hubby help me with this one. I was able to get one corner done, but it was pretty hard with the Little One being very curious about what Momma was doing. Besides, it's good to give Hubby an opportunity to use his tools. Here's the frame assembled, and in place. I placed clean cardboard below the frame to prevent any weeds or California Poppies (these buggers seem to spread like crazy. They're even growing vertically out of cracks in the deck) from growing into the raised bed. I attached two PVC pipes to the back wall in the right section of the bed. This is so I can add a trellis in the future for things like peas, squash or melons. Yep! Melons! That's one of the great things about SFGing. Using vertical space to grow! Next came mixing the dirt. It was a *really* tedious task for me to mix Mel's recommended mix. He recommends a 1:1:1 combo of compost, vermiculite, peat moss. I started by dumping the peat into a heavy duty trash bag so I could thoroughly wet it. Wet, turn, wet, turn. The peat soaked up a lot of water, but from what I've read, this is a crucial step. If the peat isn't moistened really well when mixed in, it may never get "fully" moist. I added the verm., then mixed around in the bag. After dumping into the bed, I dumped a bunch of compost and more verm. and mixed. I had to repeat the process a few more times, and after about 3 hours--broken up of course because I had to work during the middle of the day when the Little One slept, and it gets pretty hot on that concrete so I had to take a few breaks, and then more work after he went to bed. My final mix ended up being closer to 1/2 compost, 1/4 vermiculite, 1/4 peat moss. I'll tell ya' what though. That mix is light and fluffy! The last step was to seperate my soil into squares. I used some cheap twine I found for $1, tied one end to a small nail, nailed into the frame, tied around a second nail, and nailed that in. That was "fun" hammering in the dark, but I was determined to get the bed finished. It was going to rain over the coming weekend, and I wanted my plants in! On Thursday, April 30th, I filled my bed with the following... Back row: 1sq ft of onion sets (9 sets), 3sq ft of bush beans (27 plants), 3sq ft of okra (3 plants), 1sq ft of hot pepper (1 plant) Front row: 3sq ft baby carrots (48 carrots), 1sq ft marigolds (6 plants), 3sq ft broccoli (3 broccoli), 1sq ft bell pepper (1 plant) The okra and pepper plants came from the container I had them in, and 3 of the broccoli came from my salad table. Also, I presprouted 15 bean plants and 2 squares worth of carrots. Here are my presprouted beans 5 days after planting: Well, time to go. Check back in a few days for more of what's going on. I'm still not up-to-date! Mooohahahaha. I think I'm addicted to gardening...