Goal 6—Hoping I’ve learned lessons from the inefficient gardening of 2010, I want to make a more successful Garden this year.
First off, I miss my SLR. I can't wait to get it back, in the mean time, enjoy the lazyness of my point and shoot
Well, this may have been the one goal I was decent about keeping updated last year. I started seeds in yogurt cups out in the sun, planted them in pots on a timed hose over and the in-aws place. It had it's ups and downs.
I had cucumbers, squash, pumpkin, and watermelon all survive, unlike 2010 (where only the squash made it). However, I only got a few cucumbers, my pumpkin was small and not completely ripe, my watermelons were tiny (2), and my squash were pathetic compared to the precious year. My tomatos did okay in pots, the snap peas did fine, as always, and the swiss chard wasn't hearty enough to pick. Oh well.
Anyhow for TAKE 3, or Garden 2012, I made a garden at our stake plots (year one was ward plot, but they stopped doing it)
I started my seeds in yogurt cups, much later than I should of, but they did okay under my new grow lights, and I look forward to starting them EARLY this way next year.
I then weeded our stake plot, and transplanted them. You see those weeds taking over my little mounds, I was weeding it several times a week but they were persistent little buggers.
See how optimistic and covered with dirt I am?
I was really excited because the raddish were a supperfast harvest... about a month for these cute little french breakfast raddish. I ate them, then picked the rest of the row and ate those too.
I got slightly sunburnt that day, as you can see from this disgusting photo of my arm. But I went all with crazy castor oil/glycerine/rosehip seed oil/tea tree oil on it, and IT NEVER PEELED. SO, I had a pretty sweet farmer's tan for a while.
My first pea harvest (small, but exciting)
Now, I get something like THIS about twice a week.
I HAVE 19 TOMATO PLANTS. 3 were donated from a nursery (Early Girl/ better boy), and all the rest were one's I started from seeds... though one of them is still only 8 inches tall with no hope of growing, so we'll say I have 18 tomato plants.
My tomato rows a few weeks ago.
My tomato rows yesterday
They are basically falling on each other and the tomato cages are all bent.
These Early Girls have something like 30 tomatos each. This is my 5th red tomato from them. 2 I picked, and 2 someone blatantly stole. BLATANTLY, as in I decided to give the maters one more day, came back and someone had clearly broken them off the vine, not eaten like a bug, but cut the vine. JERK
above- Early girls, donated starter from a nursery
bellow- My Purple Cherokees in all their glory. I hope they ripen before the frost.
Then, I planted sweet 100's in the same row as some plum tomatoes, but I can't tell them apart, so these (below) are one of those.
Here I am standing next to Brandywine. Only 2 of those made it to maturity, and so far, these are THE ONLY TOMATO PLANTS (besides the 8 inch one we are pretending doesn't exist) THAT DON'T HAVE ANY GREEN FRUITS ON THEM YET. So sad. they have flowers, but I doubt we'll harvest from these .
My tomatos are So exciting. Imagine how excited I would be if I actually liked tomatos!
This is the ripest of my sugar pumpkins. I'm guessing it's about 8" in diameter. I've been picking off all the baby pumpkins to make sure it has enough strenght to finish, but a few snuck by me and I didn't have the heart to kill them, so now I have 3 pumpkins. The others are just a little smaller.
Here you can see two of my 3 bean plants, that I put in when the other squash died. You'll notice the weed wall to the right. I spent so much time trying to keep the tomatoes and squash area weed free, that I'm afraid the other half of my garden got a little lost.
The Bean plants are so small, that it surprised me that one of them was hanging in fruit. Say hello to my dragon beans.
I had some broccoli seeds for sprouting and eating as sprouts so I planted some and got super excited. Turns out, they are pretty sad as plants very sparse little wispy things, so I let the weeds take them over.
Then the nursery donated some broccoli plants, so I put two of those in. They are no where near as tall as my seedlings and have no buds, but they are much stronger in stature.
Say hello to the other half of my "Garden"
If all you see are weeds, you're not looking hard enough (but let's be frank, it's mostlty 4 foot tall weeds)
See, my bolted lettuce? I ate a good 3 of those before I let them be.
I'm not sure if this (below) is swiss chard or spinach I had both before the weeds conspired against me. Wasn't as waxy as my swiss chard though, so I think it is spinach.
And look carefully for my carrot leaves
I just ate these for lunch. The Horses ate the leaves for lunch a few days ago. This variety of carrot, I learned, gets pithy if you don't cook them soon, but cooking them firmed them right back up.
I'll keep picking my snap peas, carrots, get some more tomatos hopefully by the end of august/september.
AND NEXT YEAR I will definitely PUT DOWN WEED BLOCKER FABRIC. This stake plot is just out of control with weeds.
