Summer Garden Week 7

I didn't get a chance to post about the garden last week (should have posted on May 23rd) but I did take photos, so here's a quick update on how things are looking. . . . . first off, I must add that we finally got around to ordering some 'beneficial nematodes' and we watered them in to the garden last weekend. Hopefully they will do what they are supposed to do, which is eat the nasty larvae of the nasty bugs that keep eating the leaves. They should eat the grubs too that have been feasting on the roots of most of our plants!

We finally spotted our broccoli heads :-) Since this picture was taken we've actually harvested 3 of the plants and ate some broccoli last night (May 31st). I'll have a more recent picture in my next post.

I planted out some butternut squash that I had grown from seed. I had to plant them in the ground despite knowing that they may just all get eaten.

Radishes are just about ready. I probably have too many now and not enough people to share them with (everyone I ask seems to not like them much!) so I don't know what I'll do with them all.

The blackberry bush is full of red berries . . . .

I'm hoping they all turn black at once so I can try to make a little pie!

but this little guy was ahead of all the rest, so he ended up in my mouth!!!

Pumpkins are going to make it I think. Those nasty cucumber beetles are still trying to eat up the leaves but the pumpkins are not giving up without a fight.

A cucumber plant finally trying to make it too.

I will be back later today or tomorrow with week 8 photos :-)

Summer Garden Week 6

I know I just posted last Friday but those pictures were from the previous weekend (for week 5). I'm trying to post each Sunday, so I'm only a day behind this week ;-)

Let's look at some 'before' and 'after' pics. . .

before:

green beans - this picture was taken just last weekend (I planted the seeds the weekend before that and this is them sprouting just after a week)

and after:

a week later.... look how much they have grown!

Grapes:

above picture was taken exactly one month ago on April 17th

Look at those beauties today :-)

Left view of the garden: taken May 1st

notice the sunflowers in the first bed

standing in the same place you now can't see the garden, the flowers have gotten so tall!

so I moved to the right slightly and took this shot.

the beans that were flowering (May 1st)

are looking like this! Actually he's the biggest bean I could see, the rest of them are very tiny, but it looks like we'll be having green beans very soon.

What else is going on - let's go see . . . .

peaches are doing well

plums even better :-)

my cilantro and dill are going C-R-A-Z-Y! I'm letting them go to seed!

My 10 rows of radishes! This is the first picture I have taken of them, but I planted them a couple of weeks ago. See the spinach ..... it's being eaten as fast as it grows. I got two little bunches like this but I didn't pick them because they are full of holes - nasty bugs!

So, how's your garden growing?

Summer Garden Week 5

Well I took the pictures on time (last Sunday) but haven't had a chance to post the week 5 update until now. We are still having issues with beetles eating the plants, but let's take a look at what else is going on this week . . . .

First off, I planted a whole bed of beans last weekend and they are already starting to sprout - looks promising. As you can see I've gone for the 'square foot garden' approach in this bed, something we had stopped doing for some reason or other, but I think it looks much neater so I thought I'd give it a try again. Most of these beans are green beans but one row on the right is black beans! Never grown them before but it will be fun to see if we can.

Does anyone know anything about pomegranate trees? We planted this one 3 years ago when we moved in here (along with all the other fruit trees) and so far haven't had one fruit off it! Last year we only just had two flowers on it, but this year we have a lot more.

The flowers, while very pretty, always look as if they are dying off before they fully open, and there doesn't look like there's any 'bulb' behind the flower that might turn in to a fruit.

and while I'm asking questions, can someone tell me why my broccoli hasn't got any 'heads' in them yet either? We planted them way back in March! Carla mentioned her broccoli was the same a few short weeks ago, but then earlier this week she showed a picture and hers now has a lovely 'head' on it... go check it out HERE.

Grapes are looking good though.

and tomatoes are getting big!

I am still trying hard to grow squash plants... the seeds I planted last week look great. The little ones you see are tomato seedlings. Since I took this picture bell peppers have started to show too.

These are sad looking melon plants (honeyew and watermelon) that I bought at the store a few weeks ago but didn't want to plant out because I knew the beetles would just eat them... but then I had to plant them because they were looking a little 'leggy' and kept getting dry in the little pots too. I don't think much will come of them to be honest.

What to do with all the seedlings I've got if I don't want to plant them in our beds? Well, we thought we'd try something new. . . . I bought a ready made 'sq ft' garden bed at Lowes this week, they were $40. I thought we might get 2 or 3 actually and put them on the side of the house and fill them with healthy (grub free) soil. Then I thought it was a bit costly to do that so I decided on an idea I've seen online - where you take a kiddies paddling pool, put holes in the bottom and fill that with soil . . .

I planted some squash seedlings in it, but these were already starting to look pretty sad too, I think the beetles had found them (they were sitting on my patio table once they started sprouting). Since this picture was taken I've planted the healthy looking squash seedlings (see pic above) and so far so good. I am determined to get some zucchini again this year!!

We've been doing well with fertilizing on a regular basis, we usually do it every Sunday. Didn't get to do it last week because of Mother's Day!

I'm linking to Fertilizer Friday at Tootsie Time this week.

Summer Garden Week 4

Let's look at the positive . . . . despite the fact that a lot of the plants have been eaten and are still being eaten, it does look like we are making progress (albeit small) in some areas of the garden. I took these photos yesterday afternoon, so let's take a look

First of all, because all of my squash plants have been eaten I have grown some from seed in pots (I mentioned this last week but didn't show a pic) and am hanging on before I plant them out until I think they may survive the beetles attacks! (I have been using the new spray 'pyrethran' or something or other? on these and other stuff in the big beds) We can still see the cucumber beetles, which by the way look like this.....
but they don't seem to be doing as much damage since I sprayed them. The two green pots above have dill seedlings in them but they don't seem to be growing any larger. And the purple pot at the top right of the pic has lavender seeds in it.

Right corner view of the garden (above)

Left corner view... look how big the sunflowers are getting!

Peas and beans. Beans are on the right, peas top left. The black bits on the left are where we've planted more cucumber seeds! Hopefully they will come up too and we can spray them to keep the beetles off.

Progress! LOOK we have pea pods :-)

and the beans are starting to flower too.

The tomatoes seem to be doing well too. The peppers on the right, not so much!

Look at this sad looking thing.... it's supposed to be a green bell pepper! It looks very pale and sickly to me, not sure if it will get darker as it grows or if it will just shrivel up and die?

We planted pumpkins last week. These were already started in pots and were getting their second set of leaves on so I planted them out (6 total) only to have 3 eaten within days :-( I've since put more pumpkin seeds in the ground here to see if we can get more started.

the blackberry bushes are now full of berries :-)




Have a great Sunday everyone.

Summer Garden Week 3

I'm a couple of days late with the garden update this week, but better late than never! Things aren't looking so good this week, well some things are and some things aren't. The herb garden is looking good. . . .

this is the cilantro I grew from seed, I just sprinkled it on the bed a few weeks ago when the chance of frost had passed. Cilantro is a cold weather herb (which I didn't know last summer and kept wondering why it would grow so fast and go to seed before I even had a chance to use it!). There is a small bunch of it behind these main ones that I bought at the store, but mine appears to be doing even better than that one. You can also see my two pots of mint (spearmint and peppermint) and some rosemary here.

What's not doing good are the squash :-( Dang cucumber beetles are all over them and have eaten just about every one of them. I finally gave in with the natural homemade spray and went and bought some yesterday. It is still 'garden safe' but just not organic. I have more zucchini doing well in individual pots but I'm not going to put them out yet until the beetles have gone, hubby said they are seasonal and won't be around all summer (I hope he's right).

Here's the picture taken from the left side of the garden, and below is the picture from the right side. You probably can't see much difference from last week but I want to keep posting from these two locations so over time we might see a difference in growth. These were taken Monday morning, so the garden is in shade.

I bought this strawberry plant weeks ago and put it in this hanging basket. I have no where to hang it now that I've put up a topsy turvy plant (which also looks pretty sad) so I just leave it on the ground. It has barely grown. Do you think it needs to go in the ground or a bigger pot?

we have 3 tomato plants... I'm happy to say they seem to be doing well so far.

the broccoli might still be in with a chance too, something was eating it's leaves so I sprayed those too!

I'm linking to Outdoor Wednesday today. Be sure to visit Susan and all the other wonderful participants.