Garden Update 1

Now that everything is in the ground and growing I decided it was time for an update. it's 26 days in and the garden has grown. Yay! , not to mention my raspberries in the front yard. My flowers are also doing well. I'm getting cocky, I can feel it setting in. I need to bring it down a notch. It's early yet, something bad could move in and eat everything. I need to go get a couple of boxes of ladybugs and maybe a couple of bottles of insecticide. But not both, that would be wasteful and murder.

At last, according to my master plan I have tomatoes, peppers, broccoli and green beans as well as African Marigolds and two kinds of Morning Glories in the ground. I was really worried about the green beans because I had to start those from seeds and I don't have much faith in my ability to grow from seeds. I am not Alphagal.

Baby green beans

Those just appeared Thursday morning . I had given up hope that any  of them were going to germinate. I hadn't seen any signs of anything happening, I accidentally stepped on one plant all ready. I'm pretty sure that one is not going to be viable. The good news is that I planted three or four seeds in each hole and my hope is that I will be able to separate the seedlings and plant them in their own spaces. I'm not sure if that is a possibility . I'll ask Alpha Gal, she knows from seedlings and replanting.

My tomatoes are doing very well. Some seem to be growing taller faster than others but that might be attributable  to their variety. I'm hoping its not that some are getting more or better sunlight or nourishment from the soil. I did cut back some shrubs that I thought might be throwing too much shade.

The tallest tomato.

I think it would probably look better if I covered the rubber mulch with some natural mulch but I'm not sure if I want to do that much work for something I would be doing purely for cosmetic reasons. It would keep the soil more moist though and as the summer heats up I might start to see it differently, at present I'm happy with how it looks and how its working. I could pin down some of the mulch a little more securely in places but I think that way lies madness and I could easily spend most of my time and all of my clothes hangers to that battle.

Please note Frankenhose. I have the two soaker hoses attached to two separate ten foot hoses that are hooked to a separator that is hooked to yet another ten foot hose that is hooked to a timer . It's clunky but it doesn't leak and its' working the way I thought it would work, but with more hoses. No waste though, previous less Franken versions of were wasting a lot of water and that was unacceptable.

Today,  I'm watering for less time more frequently than I had thought I was going to. I finally settled on two minutes every twelve hours, down from ten minutes ever other day once a day from a high of fifteen minutes twice a day but that was way, way, way too much too often. I was creating a bog. I came home one day and someone been doing Google searches for "life jackets, tomatoes, flood insurance". I got the hint.

Look at those broccoli! They aren't doing as well as the tomatoes and peppers - who are perking along but nots a perky as the tomatoes- No one is as perky as they are. Anyway, thus far I don't notice any munching going on yet but there is most certainly either lady bugs or pesticides in the future. But not both because that would be murder.

Everyone all together