Just a few things

Took a quick tour this morning.  Gave everyone a nice soak with the hose to help soak in the fertilizer.  Overall things are looking better.  It seems some plants that started out galloping are definitely at a walk now, suspect that the early heat did that.  This week the temps have been more normal, so maybe they can start growing again after this short rest.

I have planted watermelon in 2 different spots, twice now... nothing!  Not sure if seeds were bad or someone ate them, so got new seeds & started them indoors today.  I WANT WATERMELON!  Also many of my melons are just.... small leaves, doing nothing.  I have to remember IT'S an experiment this year & my learning curve is pretty high on those.  So below are a lot of pics of beds that I hadn't really been showing you much of - just to give a clue as to how they look right now & hopefully in a month - they will be big & green!

Jenny 5/6 - Cantaloupe, pumpkin, watermelon, & zucchini....

Harry 5/6 - Spag squash, Cantaloupe, eggplants, watermelons & tomatoes...

Peter 5/6  The cukes in the back row are sure small, but so are the zucchini &squash :(

Amy 5/6 beans looking a bit better, tomatoes near in front of them aren't much better - other side of tomatoes doing ok

Oscar - Cantaloupe & squash in front, not doing well.  Will I ever get cantaloupes???  Tomatoes doing ok.

Herbs - going ok

Julia - 5/6 - Beans on left recovering - sugar snap peas in front ugh & black eyed peas on right doing pretty well.  The tomatoes & peppers are slow.

Chimney - lettuce - we'll see....

Rachel - my hardest hit beans :(  Doing some experiment here - will fill you in next month with how it went.  Tomatoes, ok.

Not bad herbs here

Robin has a nice acorn squash going

Mint in the bog growing nicely!

If you look closely you can see 6 purple lilies!  This will be cleaned out soon

Robin - still struggling - cantaloupe, melon & pumpkin in back - bush cuke on left front, zucchini in center & acorn squash on right.  Looks better than my new beds, but this is a bed that's 4 years old.

Rick - our star - same age as Robin.  Only difference really is he got 1 bag Mel's mix & 1 bag turkey manure this year - Those are some HAPPY plants!  They are all big & deep green & yep you've been seeing the zucchini & squash from here.  There are onions & scallions on the right....

So that's what they look like right now.  The best thing my "inspector" Cleco got to inspect this week didn't come from my garden, but from my daughter.  I thought I'd share the wonderful roses she sent me for Mother's Day.  My photo really doesn't do them justice.

Purple Beans!

Despite the fungus & most of their leaves dropping off, some of my bean plants have managed to actually bear beans!  Cool!

See my purple bean on the right!

Not big enough to pick yet but there were about 1 per stem right now.  They are actually called Burgundy Bush beans.

Julia's cherry tomatoes

Also my tomatoes are starting to go red even in Julia, but the plant isn't growing very high.  Is this because of type, or as DH suspects, because it developed fruit too early & thus the amount of nutrients the plant could use for growing has been instead used for the fruit?  His theory sounds good so we're gonna make sure others don't develop fruit quite so quickly.

Spaghetti squash - here's a good example of where location, location, location comes in.

Rachel - spaghetti squash

I planted spaghetti squash seed in Rachel on 2/23.  Today is the first day it's bloomed & as you can see it's not very tall - in fact there is netting to the right of the plant but it clearly doesn't need it.  Should I pick off the blooms???

Now look at the spaghetti squash in Meg!  This was planted a full 2 weeks later!

Meg's spaghetti squash

OK, so I misread the package when I planted these & planted a bunch (16) instead of 2!  Learning!  Anywho, only about 6 actually came up (whew) & I have room behind if they want to trail on ground.  Right now there are 4 of them clearly trailing up the netting.  No blooms tho.  I suspect that the growth is better than the blooming right now, but don't know exactly what to do.  I'll have to see if I can read anything on that later. 

I'll pick the last of my lettuce tonight for salad & hope to get my lettuce seedlings out in the garden tomorrow.  They are doing ok but not great as seedlings.  I still have lots to learn there. But at least these have 4 leaves (2 true), which is 4 more than the ones I sowed in the ground in Feb. They never even popped up!  I need to add the water misters to the bed & put up a shade cover but that'll be this weekend with DH's help.  We're really too hot for lettuce in summer, but I am trying to grow some "hot weather varieties" from Israel & Hawaii. We'll see.....

Outside my kitchen window

This is what I used to see 2/18/11

  Now it has 2 veggie beds:  Rachel  & Julia.  When you have 15 beds it's hard to say, "Did you see the bean plant with spots in the bed next to the tree by the kitchen window?"  The WHERE is a lot easier if you name them, so we did.

Julia is the bed closet to the front & Rachel is the farther bed.

Julia & Rachel 4/19/11

There are definitely things growing, but we're not don putting up all the hardware yet.  You'll see as we go along.  But nice to see my progress & in only 2 months.