Garden Update 9 2012

And then there were four

I found a potato bobbing around on the top of the last remaining All Blue bin ( far left) but this time instead of saying "Yay! Lets harvest!" I said "Yay! Lets put more dirt in that bin!", it helped that the one bobbing to the surface was very small and not a keeper. I am working to keep the All Blues in the ground for the full ninety days. So far I have been very weak willed about keeping the spuds in the ground for the full number of  days till maturity. It varies, some places say eighty days some say ninty days and still others say a hundred and twenty, while there are some that say that All Blues are taken "early", more or less when the plant flowers so that would be sixty-five days. It appears that you take your spuds when you want to take your spuds. Mood Harvesting.

On to another long season plant:

I have three melon plants, actually, three sets of two plants planted together and thus far, one of the sets has vined in a pretty muscular way while the other two are vining but they don't really seem to be  as excited about it as the other. This is fine, I never meant for them all to mature, because I don't think I have enough land to support hat many active watermelon plants! I am pleased though that they weren't eaten by bugs as baby plants or otherwise killed on accident by me. Last year the bugs got them before I had a chance to poison and that was why there was only one plant that lived to be productive. My marigolds are also doing a lot better than they have done in years past, usually they die quickly from either over watering or too much sun or too many bugs, but this year, knock wood, they are doing well.

The whole melon-marigold family.

Moving on to the traditional garden. On the nursery side things are moving along, slowly, but everyone is still alive and even seem to be getting taller. Their companion baby borage plants are also coming along nicely.





See seed grown, compaion borage plant at right



See adult, store bought borage. They get big. They aren't just a "compaion plant" they are a bodyguard



I wish I had understood when I ordered from the untested tomato company that the plants were going to arrive so young, Burpee sends young plants but they are much, much older when they arrive then these were. I liked that they were so cheap and I got so many but it would have been nice if they were not as immature. Its going to be the fall before these plants produce.

I also ordered peppers from he same source

And yet these guys hit the ground running

Everyone of them as if not full on baby peppers, at the very least flowers. The tomatos are a month away from anything like that.

On the non-nursery side, where as an experiment, I didn't till due to the strawberry plants, the plants from the first batch of wrong tomatoes that I kept are doing well and are really growing!

Note the second batch plants growing around its ankles. One of the first batch plants all ready has flowers!

I didn't just plant peppers and tomatoes in the traditional garden. I also put in green beans and peas. The green beans are months from being ready but the peas are all ready being productive.

I've added some to these since this was taken, but I did not relize that you had to plant so many peas to get enough to bother planting in the first place. I don't think I planted enough to get enough for a single meal much less an amount worth freezing. Lesson learned.

The beans are growing beautifully and I look forward to a big harvest.

Family picture.