Garden Update 5 2016

The tiny plants and not so tiny plants are showing progress! I've replaced a number of peppers since I planted them originally and that is not the most happy making thing for me to think about. I tried to do the right thing and buy local and small ... and ended up with starters that were too small to go in the ground and too fragile to survive out in the actual real world. It was a lesson learned. Sweet little hipster couples trying to make a go of it, might possibly learn a little more about horticulture than buying  fancy seeds from fancy seed catalogs and then planting them and selling them once they sprout -  possibly think about getting jobs at a nursery where they might learn a little more about plant husbandry .

So three of those pepper plans perished, or just failed to thrive, one by one I bought replacements.  And one by one I bought replacements for those too. The new plants seem to be doing much better now. Lesson learned - avoid hipsters and Wally for your vegetable starters. Home Depot has been a winner for me this season. Last year I bought everything at the Farmers Market and had the worst plants and poorest harvest I ever had. I'm not sure I like the lesson there in the least! Big Boxes are bad and bad for us but they sell the higher quality garden starters? It should not be, but it is.

 From the store, very uninteresting generic variety bigger, older, better adapted.

From the Hipsters. Adorably unprepared, interesting old world variety not available from stores.

The pepper family picture

I've had significantly better luck with the tomatoes! They were only slightly larger than the peppers but they are were so much better prepared.

The original Hipster provided slicing tomatoes. The plant in the front is  Cherokee Black, a very old variety that originated in NC, it looks different because it is different. They are still smaller than the store bought varieties but they are going to be okay. And fabulous.

Store bought sauce varieties.

  

less fabulous but already producing. 

The tomato family picture, note there are three peppers in this garden.

The cages in the foreground are around my remaining celery root plants. The teeny, tiny, bitty celery root plants. One is doing really well-ish the other is just stringing me along.

I think this one is just getting my hopes up, its so small.

My squash is doing well too. I have it in two locations. 

There are three or four in the big garden, and they are perking along and I think they are going to do well. However.

These were planted at the same time in a container. They are bigger, better and absolute rock stars. I have no doubt these guys are going to do land office business. From a box.

I'm not sure its visible, but a baby squash is gestating.


I am also growing corn!

Right now they are being upstaged by the squash, but soon (I hope!) they are going to out grow the squash .I'm going to have to re-home some of them  elsewhere in the box as they get bigger.

I wasn't going to deal with those nasty, high maintenance flowers but I changed ny mind. I also explored the clearance shelves and with minimal investment, watering and a touch of  fertilizer - I got some lovely plants.

(Lantana, working, working)

(above) New Elephant ear, doing well and all ready looking after babies! My senior plant made it through the winter and is going like gangbusters. I'm so proud.

And from last year, my much searched for wild Honeysuckle! It is doing well and making its way around my door. I am hoping it climbs all the way around the door and thrives! I love the way it smells.

In honor of beautifully scented climbing vines, I added a new jasmine in the back yard.

I had to dig a deep hole! So not easy, but totally worth it.

Hopefully by next time I'll have wee babies to show you.