Thursday, June 2, 2011

Garden Update 15 2011

I was out doing some light weeding out in the garden, the weed barrier does a spectacular job blocking weeds but it doesn't do 100% weed blocking, you have to do your part.

So  I was moving the barrier away and plucking out the little weedlings and getting a little annoyed at how stubborn those little bastards cane be. I guess if you are managing to cling to life under a barrier that stubborn is kind of what you do. Its why they're alive, it can't be easy to live under a piece of black fabric, I would imagine that photosynthesis is a lot more challenging. And yet,  those bad buys are there sucking up nutrients and moisture and denieing them to my "real" plants. I'm sorry their weedy little lives are so hard and they have to work so hard but I'm going to pull them up and leave them to die in the sun.  They struggle so hard for it and now they get to really get the light they want- it gives and it takes, it gives life at the same time it just leaches it out.

While I was out there killing volunteer plants, I was taking a closer look at the ones I drafted. I thought it was a good idea to plant them close together and let them support each other and forgo those fascist cages. Well, the nice thing about those fascist, is that not only do the trains run on time, the tomatoes are really disciplined and easy to scope out. I haven't gotten really up close and personal with my tomato plants since they started to get big and onm closer inspection I was pleased to see that I have more than a handful of baby tomatoes and I have lots and lots of flowers. I'm very excited.

On the downside, I really had to look hard to find those babies. I'm getting concerned that as time goes onthey are going to be really hard to manage as the season progresses. It might be hard to harvest as time goes on, but we'll see. The peppers are putting out some blooms, which is great but peppers can be really cranky about producing and they, at least in my experience, don't do a whole lot until a lot later in the season - however, this is a whole new tree free world and hopefully things will be different.

I've all ready noticed that my tomatoes are not even kind of as leggy as they have been in the past. Not a single one is over about four feet tall but they are a lot more tubby than they I remember them getting in the past, but now they have access to a lot more sun and they don't have to try so hard to get at it - they have the energy to let it all hang out, send out shoots, grow some nice limbs, get all thick in the trunk.

My beans and peas are doing well, the peas on the fence are starting to flower while the peas in the garden are getting shaded out by the rapidly growing beans - they are growing like crazy but they aren't coming across with any beans.  Yet.

The pumpkins are going to eat my front yard which is awesome because the more footage it takes over the less area I have to mow, plus the vine is pretty and lush  unlike anything its going to et in its march to the street so pretty much whatever it wants it can have. In the back yard, I'm a little concerned about the reach of the watermelon plants, I'm afraid they are going to take over before they even get halfway to producing and I don't have as much room for them to roam freely. I thought that I was going to be sorry I only had two really good plants out of the four I started with, but I think its about all I'm going to be able to take care of.

The potatoes are reaching the end of their growing season. I've stopped watering the barrel with the Yukon golds in it, as they are "early season" and should be done right now. I'm going to leave them and stop watering until the greenery officially dies off like the literature as suggested it should prior to harvest and this weekend I'm going to go back to the nursery and get some direction  on what to do next with the Holland variety I bought from them and can't find any information on.

I would totally post pictures of all this but the computer isn't speaking to the flash card . Bummer.

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