Sunday Photos

So sad - the sugar snap and snow peas are all done.

Some creature has been poisoning the parsley...

the kiwis have many new tendrils forming

One tromboncino squash didn't make it, but we don't lack for plants!

amaranth growing quite a bit taller

watermelons spreading out

zucchini coming (and watchful eyes are out looking for vine borers)

winter squash

uh oh - powdery mildew on the zucchini leaves; I'll try some baking soda treatment and hope it's not too late...

eating bolted arugula

melon flowers

lots of edamame

the pinto beans; at first I was afraid that something was going terribly wrong, but I'm pretty sure they just reached their maturity a couple of weeks sooner than expected and are now drying out

the pinto beans getting beautiful red streaks as they dry out

more zucchini flowers

first eggplants are coming

Under the leaves...

... are lots of cucumber flowers!

weird fungus, stage 1 - any guesses???

weird fungus - stage 2

an explosion of tomato blossoms, and a few green tomatoes!

first green pepper

first tomatillo

ready for the basil onslaught!

no broccoli yet - I'm not so sure it's going to make it before the really hot weather hits

tassels ready to pollinate the silks

corn claws

the 9-foot-tall corn

the new play yard for rabbits, chickens, humans, and puppy

the corn is peeking over

Transplants

Until this year I didn't really fully appreciate all the advantages of starting seedlings indoors and transplanting them outdoors when the soil is ready for them. I thought the only real advantage was to get a bit of a head start on the season.

Now, however, I realize there are many, many advantages to starting seedlings NOT in the main growing bed. Among these advantages are:

• It takes much less water to water seedlings when they are not surrounded by the many, many square feet of empty soil they will eventually occupy. 

• It is much easier to keep seedlings evenly moist when they take up a small amount of space. Most seedlings don't grow well if they alternate between wet and dry soil.

• You can protect the seedlings from insect and disease damage and from birds and other seed-eating creatures and put them out when they are able to withstand most of these.

• They are protected from sudden plunges in temperature (or from the cover on the hooped bed blowing off on the very night the temperature sinks to 22 degrees).

And of course, starting vegetables from seeds has a huge advantage over purchasing plants, both in terms of cost savings and what varieties you are able to grow. There is such a limited selection of varieties if you don't plant from seed.

Things that I wish I had started from seed indoors before transplanting outside:

• Broccoli and cauliflower, because I fear that by the time they are ready to produce the scorching heat will have arrived and we won't be getting much.

• Basil. I think the alternating wet/dry is slowing it down and causing pretty uneven growth throughout the various basil areas. They would be doing fine, I think, if they got watered daily without fail. Sometimes I fail!

• Melons. I think these would have done great over a heated germination pad. The little sakata melon seedlings are just now finally starting to take off after having sat with nothing but their first set of true leaves (after the cotyledons) for quite some time, probably because our weather is now consistently above 85 during the day. I hope they'll continue to flourish and bring us melons!

• Eggplant. Ditto.

• Peppers. Ditto.

There are also a few things, like the peas, that I wish we had started earlier, but we sure got a much earlier start than we did in 2011, and I suspect we'll be even more prepared to let the cow out of the barn in December/January instead of February. It takes a while to adjust to the rhythms of southern vegetable gardening!

Great Book

I have been rather absorbed in this book, taking many mental notes as I go. So much to learn! And so many wonderful things to glean from reading about life on a farm. His farm is a real one, much larger then my garden, and he lives in Illinois with very different timings for things, but how fun it is to read a week-by-week account of what needs to be done. Everything from marketing the vegetables, to having bees, the best way to cook what they grow (recipes included!), the relative cash value of their crops, the bone-chilling labor during the Illinois winter, and the slaughter of animals.

Already, just 2-1/2 months into our real growing season (post-frost) there are so many, many things I plan to do differently next time. I love that part about gardening, and I know it will take us 3–5 years to really hit our stride. What a marvelous time we're having along the way!

CAVEAT EMPTOR: I was disappointed, upon finishing the book, to see that two of the chapters include rather inappropriate material which really dampened my enthusiasm for this otherwise wonderful book. I don't know if this is the new "style" of writing, but I found the same thing in reading what would have been a very fun around-the-world history of fruit. I find this terribly disappointing and disturbing and plan to write to the publishers and authors.

Composters

 Introducing Master Horatio...

...and Miss Amelia.









Our new composters! Sure is a lot faster to compost this way than to wait for a pile of veggie waste to compost. We can put their waste right into the garden (most other animal fertilizer is too hot and has to be composted first). We can use their waste to feed the tilapia when we get around to raising them. We could also have a worm bin right under their condo to feed worms which in turn could feed our tilapia. Yes, many reasons to keep rabbits. But the real reason? They're just so very cute. :) They don't do well in temperatures over 85, so when it gets that hot outside, we'll move them in to live with us. The kids don't mind, of course. The rabbits shared the same condo for the first time today (neutered male and spayed female), and they got along great. They even snuggled! They also ran around with the chickens for most of the afternoon, and the chickens seemed to think it was quite amusing, but not nearly as amusing as their evening snacks of pasta and cockroaches. Apparently, cockroaches are a premium treat and there is a lot of fighting over who gets to eat them.

Farm Dog

Every farm, even the urban ones, needs its own farm dog. So here is Basil Rathbone (long "a" in this case!) who came home with us from a rescue organization today. He's an English Shepherd mix and just look at those paws!

Irrigation

The northeast quadrant of the garden has its own drip irrigation system now! Bit by bit. This now relieves us of a good 30 minutes of near-daily labor, and I love seeing the small amount of water it takes to water everything now.

Flea Beetles

This Flea Beetle is my new nemesis. They sprang out of the ground with a vicious appetite, destroying several perennials I had in the flower bed in a single afternoon. They seem to attack a single of variety of flower, decimate it, then move on to the next. At first I thought they were Japanese Beetles, but those were supposed to be half and inch long and these were quite a bit smaller. Perhaps they were just a juvenile form? But I researched it further and finally discovered it was a Flea Beetle.

The beetles are black with an irridiscent green color and are only a few millimeters long. They jump just like a flea when you touch them. They are a bigger problem after a very mild winter. Diatamoceous earth added to the soil and on the plants will help get rid of them and prevent them from eating all your plants! I have to do a thorough inspection of the garden to see if they are lurking elsewhere. UGH!