Gardens

July 18

The other day, I mentioned my finger-sized zucchini that weren't going anywhere. Well, today while I was at a local farm market, I mentioned it to the farmer who ran the market. He said it sounded like one of two things were the cause of my problem: lack of sunshine or lack of potassium in the soil.
So, I got to thinking about my soil. I had the bright idea to make my mounds out of bagged topsoil. Not Miracle Gro soil or any other enriched soil, just Wal-Mart topsoil in a bag. In hind-sight, not so smart since zucchini roots don't run deep.
Not the one to quit at the first sign of trouble, I went to my favorite source of information - Google - to figure out how to get more potassium in my soil. The best way to do it, without chemicals or costly other processed stuff - potash. Or, more simply, the ashes of a wood fire. All of a sudden, I wasn't so upset that Big D hadn't cleaned out the fireplace after our last fire.
After the big rain storm we got this afternoon, I took my kitchen scissors out and cut off all the little puny zukes and long spears that weren't going to be anything. Then, Big D covered the mounds with the ash. I figured at this point, I really had nothing to lose, so we'll see how it works.

My zucchini covered in potash - we'll see how it works! I hope it's not too late!

These four tomato plants are now over 6 feet tall!

I also planted 8 cauliflower and 8 cabbage plants today. I'm thinking about digging up where I planted potatoes (I'm pretty sure they all rotted save one) and planting more beans and peas for an end-of-season crop.

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July 12

Everything looks good in the garden.  "Looks" good being the optimum word. We have eaten a few pickling cukes with salt & vinegar, but that's it. My zucchini plants are huge and have fingerling fruit, but nothing close to picking size. My tomato plants are loaded and my beans are full of blossoms, so everything has promise.  I have some small bell peppers and some hot peppers that are ready.  I also noticed I have a potato plant coming through the straw!

I saw a recipe the other day on Food Network that used pea greens for a salad base. It looked good, but I don't know what would happen to my peas if I pick the leaves for a salad.

These beef steak and some of my paste tomato plants are over 5 feet tall!

The first Yukon Gold peeking through

Green beans

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June 22

The tomato plants are huge, but still no tomatoes. On the other hand, my mom's plants are puny and loaded with little green tomatoes! In other disappointing garden news, storm came through the other day and tore one of my gorgeous zucchini plants in half and out of the ground. Everything looks good, I'm just impatiently waiting!

peas

paste tomato

zukes

trying to save my storm damaged zuke

green beans

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June 12

The garden is coming along beautifully! I even saw a few flowers on my tomatoes this weekend. The beans and peas are up and the zucchini are going crazy!!

These are the beefsteaks! MMM Mmmmm

Zucchini Love

Green Lake Green Beans at 10 days

Peas at 10 days

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June 2
Everything in the gardens has more than doubled in size. The sunshine and heat of the last few days has done wonders for the tomatoes and zucchini.  Today, Little D helped me plant the green beans and peas.  This will be the first time I have ever tried to grow peas. I used bamboo stakes and nylon trellis line for the first time too. I guess we'll see. I still have four paste tomato plants and four cucumber plants that need a home. Big D offered to build some more raised beds - gotta love that man!

Planting peas.

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May 22

How does my garden grow? Well, so far it's been slow going. Since we have received record amounts of rainfall and my backyard is a muddy slip-n-slide, I'm not as far with my garden as I would like to be. All of the raised beds - 20 in all - have been weeded.
About a month ago, we planted asparagus and strawberries in three beds. I'm not sure how they're going to do this year because I think we may have gotten them in late. And, the cat promptly used those beds for her personal business.
This weekend, I got my tomatoes and peppers in. You may think I'm as crazy as my husband does, but I do have a tendency to go a little overboard. Since I want to try my hand at canning this year, I figured I should plants lots of tomatoes. So, I planted four beef steak, because I love to eat them on a plate sprinkled with salt; four best boys, because Big D likes those on sandwiches; and four Roma, four Amish paste, and 12 paste. I also planted six of each kind of pepper: Hungarian hot, green bell and sweet red bell. I planted two big hills of zucchini and four pickling cucumber plants. Now all I have to do is get my bean seeds in the ground.

The raised beds, mid-planting.

To try to make good use of the space, I planted one mound of pickling cucumbers in the middle of each bed off six pepper plants. We'll see.