Good & Bad

First the good - remember my dead bay tree... it's back!  How totally cool is that?  I was just being lazy in that I didn't pull it out & buy another but now... 

Look at all those new leaves!

And it has them ALL THE WAY DOWN!

The green netting - still holding!

Yes, small but OURS! The ones the raccoon got were about 5-6 oz - this 1 oz....

 Ok for the bad - here's what my acorn squash in Robin was like :(

The acorn squash is on the left side

Obviously rotten...

So I ripped that out & put a summer squash there because the summer squash in Rick now looks like this!

It WAS OK.... just last week got a squash!

Continuing on our "bad tour" this is Meg's spaghetti squash - all are dead except the one on the right.  Not enough water?  Too much DE (there were TONS of ants)- not enough fertilizer???  The pumpkin on the other side of Meg looks the same - dead, & no new leaves.

Got 1 rotten SMALL spaghetti squash out of here :(

 YIKES!  What am I doing wrong?  Sigh - these are experiments - next year will be better.... repeat!  These are experiments - next year will be better.... repeat!

We have done some changes - we have upped the amount of water the plants are getting & I had been doing algae foliar feeding weekly.  Then everything went light green, we changed to something with HIGH nitrogen & that seemed to help.  We have now fed them twice with a 24/8/16 fertilizer & I took pics of before & after.  Really we didn't need the pics - ALL the plants have now taken off & growing & looking soooo much better.  So, was it the lack of water - lack of correct feeding??? Both??  Who knows, who cares - grow baby grow!

Bay Tree

Been busy with other things lately.  I cook from scratch most days - geez that takes up some time! :)  But I really enjoy it.  Today we woke up to fresh homemade bread (yeah bread machine) & then I made homemade vegetable soup - using a zucchini & a squash from the garden, along with my normal frozen veggies.  Then I made Ranch dressing.  I don't have any red bell peppers yet, but have some from last year that I dehydrated & work great.

Recognize this?

It probably doesn't look like what you'd get in the grocery store does it?  But that's my red onion.  Looks a bit weird but tasted fine.  The jar it's next to is an empty 32oz jelly jar - impressive huh?

One thing that totally flopped a few weeks ago is my bay tree.  This thing was 6' tall, gorgeous & in a REALLY small pot.  So, I did something I think I should have done 2 years ago... I transplanted it into a bigger pot & cut it in half & put that also in a bigger pot.  So much for doing a good deed....

Not a trick of lighting - all the leaves turned brown.... This was bottom half

This was the top half

I would have taken pictures today, but it was just too depressing... the bottom half of the plant - was a stick! :(  There are a few leaves on the top half still, but I think I need to just get another plant & put it in the big pot to start with... But will check with my friendly wonderfully informative local nursery folks!  They are really good & if you live locally I highly recommend them.