Sunday, June 05, 2016

What's Growing on....

We've had some nice hot days and while some may claim that it got to hot to fast I love it because it means the garden is going to take off. So I deal with the heat and the bugs because it means that tomatoes and cucumbers are right around the corner. Anyway I had a few overcast hours this week, great time to take pictures... so here they are...

I am growing two cherry tomatoes, sungold (pictured on the left) and black cherry (pictured on the right) both are flowering. My other tomatoes are doing well just not flowering yet. 

The deer have not eaten my plum tree to the ground this year so I actually have a few plums. I think this is because we let Trixy out the front door late at night. She chases deer out of the yard at weird hours so they don't hang around... as much. I put some bird netting over them... lets hope these fruit make it. I have had this plant for several years and have yet to taste a plum from it.  

These are the wild raspberries growing in the lansdcaping in my front yard. Yes they are already fruiting!!! The roots are in the middle of a really nice bush so I haven't been able to fully pull them out. I'd love to transplant these to the back yard. I need to try rooting them. 


This year I am going to try growing okra as a edible landscaping plant. I have sowed seed on either side of this bush in my yard. My son really wanted okra, he likes to eat them raw. I know crazy right, who likes to eat okra raw.  So if this works (and the deer don't eat them). I'll have some nice flowers and enough okra to keep my son happy. 


 Gotu Kola is coming back! I was worried that I lost this crop when the planter got knocked over by a fallen tree. I've been watching this planter like a hawk and now there are small seedlings all over so I am in the clear. 

 I feel like I need to rethink how I grow eggplant. While I always get eggplant, often times the bugs come and eat the leaves, slowing down its growth. However last two years I've had eggplant growing in a pot on my deck. Those do phenomenal. The bug pressure is much lower on the deck so the plants do better and fruit earlier. I mean look at this.... it has a flower bud already!


I was at a local nursery and on a whim I decided to buy some snap pea starts. They really were slow growing and they just started producing peas. Oh well.

 This square foot garden just exploded with all the heat we have been having. The back row is my cucumbers, Lto R: pickling, two squares of mexican sour gherkins (for the kids), and slicing cucumber. 
The second row is (Lto R): cilantro, beets, carrots and parsley (I know I should have waited till the end of summer to start carrots but oh well my son loves them).
The third row (L to R): nothing (a volunteer mustard plant which I may just let go to seed), dill, basil and a basil plant I bought at the grocery store.
Fourth row: sugar pumpkin, a volunteer squash (its either butter nut squash or sugar pumpkin I am hoping its butter nut squash), nothing and cantaloupe. I will be letting the vining plants spill out of the bed. 

 My other squarefoot garden has my night shades this year. Two different types of eggplant and five different type of peppers. My first peppers to flower are likely going to be the thai chillis and Cayennes. I can see the flower buds on both. I really need to learn to prune my peppers. There are so many you tube videos on this. I just have to sit down and watch them. 


STRAWBERRIES!!! Yup... I have strawberries this year.... Four years ago I had a few small plants that did well so I bought more plants to increase my yield. Well the deer ate those, so I moved the plants into a small section of my fenced in garden. Well the year after that the birds ate them and we didn't get a single one. This year I put bird netting over the plants and Voila I have strawberries. I have lost a few (probably to a chipmunk) but they really don't like the netting so they don't get to many. I am really happy with this. I was actually going to pull the plants out since they take up some precious space in my fenced in garden but they did so well so they are allowed to stay. 

You can't really tell from this picture but my music garlic is HUGE!!! Really huge, my mom said it best... they look like small corn stalks. I can't wait to see how the garlic is under the ground. I am also eager to pull them out because I fell like they are shading out the plants behind them. From now on music is going in the back so they don't shade out anything. The scapes started growing on the music garlic a little more than a week ago so they still have some more time in the ground. My chinese pinks have had scapes for a few weeks now, they should be almost done, but they are very mild. I was thinking about trying to eat these raw (an old indian thing I can remember my grandmother doing). They are really not great for cooking with since they are so mild. 


I planted my onions 2 weeks late so I still have a long ways to go with them. I really need to weed and mulch them. I should have put in mulch right after I planted them. oh well. 

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