Finally Getting Somewhere!

I'm finally starting to have stuff to pick on a pretty regular basis. First it was the green beans a few weeks ago (which, by the way, are flowering again so, woot! I'm going to have more green beans!) and now it's mostly tomatoes and cukes (see previous post for cuke update.) My tomatoes have been rotting on the vine and I learned that that can mean they're calcium deficient. So, as recommended, I crushed up some Tums into water and watered my tomatoes with them. I have yet to see if that's helping.

I got 5 Romas and one slicing tomato this week. I had another slicing tomato but it rotted big time. Since I'll be gone all week and the tomatoes are way too ripe to make it until I get back, I made a tomato basil sauce today to freeze. My measly 6 Romas and 1 slicing tomato made about 1/3 cup of sauce but I'll definitely be using it on something next weekend. I sorta just threw the stuff together, but I'll attempt to post the recipe.

I also got a few more green onions today. I decided to chop them up and throw them in the tomato sauce with the store-bought onions. They're pretty small and I think it's because the gigantic roots from the cucumbers and watermelon have taken over the onion square.

My broccoli is finally looking like broccoli...sorta.  It was a teeny tiny little head and then it got a little bigger and started flowering. I'm really not sure what I should do with it now.

My jalapenos are still growing strong. I'm thinking I'll be having some chili next weekend. My replanted (for the 17th time!) cilantro is doing well inside so maybe I'll have some real cilantro leaves next weekend and I can use some tomatoes and jalapenos from the garden to make some salsa! That's pretty exciting!

My prize cantaloupe is no longer watermelon-ish...it's 100% cantaloupe! It's getting its mesh and it's rounding out (rather than being oblong like a watermelon.) It's by far the fruit/veggie I'm most excited about. I just wish it would hurry up!

(Pictured with my hand so you can tell how big it is.)

Last, I planted some pumpkin seeds today. I was supposed to plant them at the beginning of July but forgot. I hope they're ready for carvin' by Halloween! I suppose the advantage is that I don't plan to eat them so they can be under ripe as long as they're orange.

I Think I Missed My Calling...

As a Cucumber Farmer!

Pictured above (basking in the sun) are cucumbers 6, 7, 8 and 9. Cucumber 10 was picked this morning and is not pictured. I gave two cucumbers away, made one into an awesome cucumber/dill salad (recipe going on the recipe page soon), ate another raw with dip and I currently have 6 (SIX!!!) on my counter waiting for...something. I just got home from checking out pickling stuff. It seems really complicated and possibly a little pricey. Plus, the Packet O' Picklin' Stuff is for 7 pounds of cucumbers. I have quite a few...but NOT 7 pounds! I decided it wasn't worth my time/money. Plus, I think Vlasic does a really good job that I could not out-pickle.  So, I bought some sour cream to make another dip so I can get busy eating them raw. I'm going to be out of town all week so I'll give most of them to David to take to work to give to people.

In not-so-good cucumber news, they're all dying so I won't have to worry about the overabundance for long. I thought they weren't getting enough water so I was watering them like crazy. But then David says, "Oh, well didn't you know that those cucumber bugs inject something into the stems of the plants that ...(does some magic)...and makes them wilt?" Yes. I knew that. That's why I was letting them hang out all over my cukes for the past few weeks. Duh! Of course I didn't know that!! So, now I need to figure out how to get rid of cucumber bugs.

Yet Another Update

My garden overflowith. In fact, it overflowith so much that I had to take a panorama of it. Ha! The cucumbers (on the right) are a good 6 feet outside the box. Watermelon and cantaloupe are catching up too.

Based on the seed packet, this is a cantaloupe. Based on my knowledge of cantaloupes, this is a watermelon. I'm not sure what's up, but I'm happy to have something. It's about 4 inches tall.

I got my first tomato. This is allegedly a Roma. It also has a nibble out of the top. I assume that's from Mr. Squirrel. I'm glad he at least left it on the plant. There are a couple big slicing tomatoes that are almost ready too.

I have two jalapenos just like this. Luckily, they're pretty close to ready since they're not big peppers anyway. I be they would've tasted great in the chili I made tonight.

I had a lot of green beans and they were delicious. I was told (by someone possibly not too knowledgeable) that they should continue to flower and have more beans all summer long. It's not looking like it's going to go that way. Plus, something is eating the leaves like mad.

And last but not least-- cucumbers. They're a little out of control (as you can tell from the first picture). This is cucumber two through five. They're huge-- 7-8 inches each. There's no way I can eat this many cucumbers. I'm hunting some pickle recipes.

Who's coming over for cucumber salad?!

Weekend Update

This is going to be a delicious cantaloupe one day. There are a couple of these on the vine. I hope they stagger themselves because I don't need a bunch of cantaloupe all at once.

And my peppers are starting to show some good progress. There are a couple of these on each plant. Oddly, the plants are still pretty small. I don't know anything about growing peppers though, so maybe it's not odd.

The cucumbers are showing noticeable progress every single day. This is the current state. It's kind of creepy though. Hopefully I can get this picture out of my mind when it's time to eat them.

The tomatoes are growing, growing, growing. I'm going to have SO MANY tomatoes. I hope my neighbors and co-workers like them!

My broccoli and cauliflower seem to have attracted something that likes the leaves.

I'm not sure what I can do about it and I'm not sure I'm going to have any progress with the broccoli and cauliflower in general. I'm reading online that they're definitely cold weather plants so I'm not sure if I can expect anything this summer. Lots of people say to plant them in mid- to late summer to have a fall crop. I think I'll use some of my empty space to plant some for the fall. I'm also going to fill my empty space with onions because the ones I got last week were fantastic!

The Good News

Peas and lettuce are bad news. And now, for the good news.

My tomatoes are getting huge! The romas are already way bigger than in the grocery store and they're still completely green! There are tons of them and quite a few big slicing tomatoes too! Now it's just a waiting game for them to get red. Hopefully the squirrels aren't attracted to them. These aren't even the biggest ones:

I harvested some onions today. On the packet, it said to pick them early to get scallion-type onions or leave them grow longer to get bigger (how much?) onions. Mine are a little fatter than scallions. I haven't tasted them yet though.

My cucumbers seem to be starting as well. They look a little weird at this point. If all my flowers turn into cucumbers, I'm going to have a million cucumbers. And, these are going to be the big ones.

And the last of the good news is that my peppers are finally flowering. I was really starting to lose hope for them.

Hey! I read about this online!

I read about this online...and it's not good!

My lettuce had been so weird. I couldn't figure out what was going on. It was iceberg lettuce but it never formed heads. And, it was really tall, like 3 feet tall. I tried reading up on it and I learned about flowering and bolting. I believe this is what that looks like:

Bad, bad, bad. So, I yanked my lettuce today. From my research, I'd say it was due to heat and overcrowding. There's some advice out there about growing leaf lettuce in the summertime so I might go that route. Since I got rid of the peas and the lettuce, I have three empty squares. Now I have to figure out what to do with them.

I'm sorry, but you gots to go!

I've given up on my peas. They're way too big. So big, in fact, that they are shadowing and killing themselves. They're also shadowing my green beans and onions. Worst of all, I've tried a couple ways of eating them and I really don't even like them.

So, I checked at Meijer and did a little math...

I harvested 8.75oz of peas. Sugar snap peas at Meijer are $3.99 per pound. If my peas are $3.99 per pound, I harvested $2.18 worth of peas. I paid $1.19 for my seed packet. So, I still came out ahead...by $0.99.

Repurposed Fence

A while ago, I bought some chicken wire to put up around the perimeter of my garden. It was intended to keep the critters out because I thought "the critters" were rabbits. The squirrels, however, can climb the fence so it was of no use.

Some of my plants (tomatoes, cucumbers, peas) are completely out of control. Granted, it's out of control in a good way but they're shadowing some of the smaller plants (peppers, onions, green beans). I had intended on building cages for the big plants to keep them under control but that was not working out so instead, I built cages for the small plants to keep the big ones from invading their space. I think it worked out pretty well.

To make 1 foot cages to fit into my 1 foot squares, I cut the fence into 3.14 foot sections. (You know, 'cause c = 2πr. As it turns out, I did learn something from all those math classes.) Then I used four zip ties to make them into cylinders.

They stand up well on their own and they are easily dug into the relatively loose dirt in the garden so I didn't need to use anything to anchor them down. I ended up putting them around my four pepper plants, one square of onions and one square of green beans. The original square of green beans is way too big already.

I think the peppers are thanking me already.