Monday, July 13, 2009

Garden Update (Slackers Edition)


The past week I've not only been slacking on blogging, but slacking on gardening as well. But it's really not my fault, since I've been completely consumed by MDT's and my new business (or more accurately, its website).

Since I'm so behind (especially on weeding), these are actually pictures from last week. Except for one hardy plant, the beans aren't looking so hot. The crows kept biting them in half as soon as they sprouted, so MDT and I had to plant a second round of seeds nearly two weeks after the first planting. And the bugs are just chowing down on the new seedlings. I've been trying to spray them with organic homemade pesticide (recipe below) but it keeps raining and washing it away. Sigh.


String beans.

The pepper plants are all doing pretty well, except that we haven't gotten any decent peppers yet. It's been so hot here that the two little ones we had merely shriveled up and fell off. Hopefully we'll get some more now that it's starting to cool off a little.


Pepper plant and partially shriveled pepper.

The carrots are finally coming up, but it's nearly impossible to weed around them since they're so spindly and hard to see. Next time I plant carrots, it'll be in a raised bed or a pot, where I don't have to worry about weeding around them.


The carrots are the itty bitty light green ones with leaves that look like little hands.

The swiss chard is doing especially poorly in this heat. In fact, only seven or eight actually sprouted. I really like swiss chard, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they hit a growth spurt soon.


Sad little swiss chard.

The cucumber plants are growing the best so far. One bunch is getting especially huge. I'm going to have to keep an eye on it so it doesn't take over the rest of the garden. Next year we're building a trellis for sure.


The runaway cucumber.

The tomato plants are doing pretty well also. I neglected to sucker them (oops), so they're more bush-like than I wanted, but oh well. We should be seeing some blossoms soon.


Tomatoes.

The watermelon patch is looking pretty good considering the rocky soil on top of the hill. I'm thinking I won't bother weeding up there since the grass will give the melons something to rest on so they don't rot. Think that'll work?


Watermelons.

And finally, this is our compost pile--grass clippings, food scraps, and a whole lot of coffee grounds. It's not in a fancy tumbler or anything, but we're not in a hurry and the heat here speeds the decomposition along nicely. When the garden is done this fall, we'll just spread the new compost over it and till it in so it'll be nice and fertile for whoever lives here next year.


The compost pile--not the prettiest or the quickest, but it was a last-minute idea and we decided to go with it.






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1 comments:

grace said...

nice blog..

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