Spring 2010-week 2

We've got our first seedling growing! It's a cucumber and, so far, none of the others have started growing but Kirstin will keep an eye out for any.

Happy gardening!

Spring 2010-week 1

Well, it's finally starting to warm up and Kirstin is on Spring Break so we figured it's time to start planting! Yesterday, Kirstin planted some asparagus in one of our short beds and hopefully they'll grow and we can get some asparagus. Today, Kirstin started some seeds inside and in about 2-4 weeks the seedlings will be able to transplant into the garden beds. She planted leaf lettuce, iceberg lettuce, cucumber, cantaloupe, straight-neck squash, butternut squash, and ancho peppers. Tomorrow morning/afternoon, she will be planting yellow garden beans, green garden beans, sugar snap peas, radishes and beets. The beds all need to be tilled (because they are as hard as a rock!) and will get some new soil added to the beds.

These are the seeds that Kirstin used

Until next week, happy gardening!

Melon results

The canteloupe was ripe, juicy, and really, really sweet. It was delicious! Hoping we get more.

An Unexpected Surprise

This canteloupe had been hanging from its vine, growing on the little trellis quietly for some weeks now. I've been watching it, but not really expecting to get anything from the canteloupe vines. The vine in the middle died and was pulled out...the little melon growing on it had fallen off and was eaten by birds and squirrels. I figured the other two vines would come out soon. But this morning when I was taking pictures of the boxes to update the blog, I found this melon had fallen off of the vine. I picked it up...it was heavy. I smelled it, it smelled like a canteloupe. The rind is yellow...could it be a perfectly ripe canteloupe??? We'll cut it later and post the results.

Week 15...finally on time!

For the last 3 weeks we took pictures every Friday but just didn't update the blog with them. So now we're all caught up. Hope to stay on top of things from now on!

Here is the strawberry and soon-to-be asparagus beds. The strawberry plants are busy putting out runners and I hope they fill the box! Next June we're sure to have a lot of strawberries.
In this box, we removed the dead squash plants and one of the canteloupe vines that didn't make it. We replaced them with more yellow squash and cucumber seedlings...hope we're past the bug season and they can produce without being destroyed. Still getting a lot of yellow and grape tomatoes from here, anywhere from 5-10 a day.

All of the broccoli have been removed! The cabbage plant, the rhubarb, and the onions remain. We are starting seeds indoors for fall and winter crops. (Don't want the squirrels to be digging up any seeds we plant!)
We got a cucumber from this box the other day...it looked fine but after a little while we realized it had a pickleworm inside it having a good time eating its way through. I just don't know if we're going to get anything else from here. There are a couple of female blooms on the zucchini -- if they don't produce a zucchini, we'll probably pull these out also.
These tomatoes although still producing, are showing some signs of distress...so this week most of the lower branches were removed that were brown or yellow. They were given a slow-release fertilizer and fresh extra soil was mounded up around their stems. The pepper plants are starting to set more fruit and are blooming nicely.

Week 14 (updated late)

I didn't take the pictures last Friday, so the angles of the photos are different than usual.

Side view of box closest to house. No matter how many times we've tried, we just can't make the tomato cages stand upright! Notice the yellow squash have died...due to the borers.
These broccoli are coming out this week...there's no more broccoli being produced and there's no use trying to keep them alive.
The zucchini and squash seem to be coming back...the growth all seems to be new and healthy...we just hope that there are no remaining bugs to get to the new "generation" of the plants.
Lots of cherry tomatoes!

Week 13 (updated late)

Even with frequent applications of sevin dust, we just can't keep the cabbage worms from destroying the broccoli...
and the little borer worms from getting into the zucchini and squash.