Sad but true

Sadly I've let my garden go.  I still have pumpkins growing and some tomatoes, chili peppers, bell peppers, onions, cucumbers and onions that are hanging on but it is supposed to freeze this weekend and garden season is over for me.  My life has overwhelmed me recently and the easiest thing to let slide was garden and lawn.  soooooooo Here's to next year!

Auto-pilot

My garden is on auto pilot.  I pull a few weeds every day and turn on the soaked hoses for a few hours.  I've made 10 1/2 pints of zucchini relish so far.

July 4, 2012

I haven't kept up with any of my blogs this summer, but I've been watching the garden grow.  I lost my potato plants so we dug them up today and got some good out of it.  They were starting to get eaten, so it is good that my hubby and I dug them up.

I also have gotten 3 zucchini now.  My entire replant of green beans is growing.  I replanted tomatoes and I have success with the plants themselves and there are 3 cherry tomatoes on the vine as well.
Carrots are coming up between tomatoes and in their own little row.  Chili pepper is doing well and I have 3 green pepper plants.  My 2 pumpkin plants are doing well.  I still have life in my black-eyed peas but no blooms.  I put dill in the garden and see nothing yet.  My onions are between the size of golf balls and baseballs.  My sweet potato is thriving above ground, so I'm excited to see them this fall.
So far no parsnips have come up, my replant of lettuce is looking good.  I just planted about 10 brussels sprout plants and 2 eggplants.  All of my first lettuce is done.  3 of my zucchini plants are HUGE and one is small and I have 3 watermelon plants that look healthy and my 4 cucumber plants are blooming.  It was too hot for my spinach replant so that's a bummer, I might try again in a few weeks.  Last of all I planted about 50 new onion sets for green onions.  They looked poor at the store, and I have about a 50% success rate on them.  We have had just over a half inch of rain in the last month and the temps have been over 100 degrees F most days for a few weeks.
My watering system has switched and I am doing soaker hoses only and it seems to bee keeping the rest of my crops alive for now.
I had a beautiful crop of parsley until a few days ago and caterpillars ate almost all of the leaves.  UGH!!!!!  I  hand picked them off and they never returned for the basil which is beautiful.
I will post again with more harvest pics.

Vacations and storms

Well, I went out of town for 8 days.  My husband watered my garden faithfully and I am pleased with that.  While I was gone there was a very big storm with winds that destroyed grain bins and buildings.  It took some shingles of my roof and branches from my trees and ripped doors off my garden shed and knocked over my grill and broke it.  So, that is the property damage.
Garden assessment.  My tomatoes are a loss, but it is early enough this season to replant.  Most of my black-eyed  peas are gone and all of my peas are gone.  The spinach was almost at its end and has gone to seed, but the remaining spinach is ok.  The lettuce looks surprisingly good.  My seedlings must have been small enough to avoid damage because my pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchini, and watermelon are all broken through their mounds minus 2 mounds that haven't sprouted.  They all look as they should.  In the front flower bed, my mums are stripped to stalks and a lot of twigs are in my flower beds.  Roses look good and my herb pots survived.
So far I see no green beans or carrots or green peppers or parsnips.  I may need to replant green beans and peas, but it is a bit early for the peppers, carrots and parsnips.  My spinach replants are sprouting too.
I don't have much planned this coming week except baseball practice for my son and 1 game, so I have plenty of time to do a recovery for the garden.  As for today and tomorrow, I have birthday celebrations and church and rest, rest, rest!

Day 57

Well, It's been 2 more days and the stems of my tomatoes are still firm and fully green.  Some of the leaves are still droopy, but I think it's a good sign that they are no worse for the wear.   We went shopping and found some new sprinklers, so I'm going to set us up with the sprinklers for watering instead of hand watering now that the whole garden plot is planted.  I was going to put out soaker hoses, but I would have to buy more and I think if I change my watering to evenings, the sprinklers will do just fine.  I can put them in each corner and water the whole garden at once.
We also put up a fence of chicken wire to keep the nibbling bunnies out and tonight I came home and found a very small rabbit near my fence.  I scared it half to death I think and it ran into my fence and bounced off 2 times and finally broke through, but ran completely through the garden and I'm pretty sure it got out between the pickets of the front fence.  There's only so much I can do.  Since the chicken wire has larger holes than I planned on, a baby bunny can get through them if it bounces a few times first.  I just hope not to hurt one.

This picture was taken just after my planting on May 14, but before watering.

Tomatoes, Come back!

Well 4 days ago, I transplanted tomatoes and they look pretty pathetic at this point.  I've been told that they go into shock, but I've never had this trouble before.  I've had tomato plants since I started gardening about 5 years ago and they've always transplanted well.  This time they are all droopy.  The stems are firm, so I haven't lost hope.  I've done a little research and found they have transplant shock.  OK, now what?
According to the bloggers, you are to pinch off some of the leaves so that the roots concentrate on growing.  That goes along with what I heard from some Master Gardeners last night.  I did that Tuesday.  Still today they're droopy.  According to these Master Gardeners, roots also need oxygen so they recommend spading the ground about 12 inches before transplanting.   Well, its too late for that for me, but I poked holes in the ground around the plants about 12 inches with an iron fence rod that is about 1/2 inch diameter.  I watered away from the plants and pretty much filled these holes so the water will saturate deeply.  I'm hoping that once the water soaks through the deeper soil that these holes will become air pockets.  One of my plants was a little perkier this morning, but I did the same for all.  We'll see how they all come out.
I'm also traveling for a week next week.  Last time I did this and left my dearly beloved husband in charge of my garden.  My seedlings were dead and my garden was wimpy when I returned.  I'm giving him instructions now to hopefully prevent that while I'm gone this time.  I might just put out a soaker hose and turn it on to a trickle for the duration of my absence.  That way the only thing left is my herb pots.  Surely if I move them inside, they'll be seen and taken care of... Maybe.

Day 51 of 2012 garden

Finally every crop is in the ground that I want to grow ... okay, I really want some carrots, but can't find the seeds.  Yesterday, I weeded the current crops in detail and wrote about what I learned in my Reflections blog. My husband and son tilled the soil in the rest of the garden to make it ready for the final planting.  I got that done and I'm one tired Mamma.
I planted green beans along the fence and pumpkins behind that.  I planted most of these others in mounds as the package instructs.  I was going to do a row of cucumbers, but changed my mind.  I have 7 hills of zucchini and 4 hills of watermelon.  I planted 2 hills of pumpkin and 6 hills of cucumbers.  Since I was running out of space, I may have made a mistake by putting these rows of hills too close together, but I staggered the hills.
The last thing I was going to do was tomatoes, but I had to go to the store anyhow so I bought 6 tomato plants.  I bought 1 German Queen Heirloom, 2 Cherokee Purple Heirlooms, 1 Black Krim Heirloom, 1 Pink Brandy-wine Heirloom and a Sweet N Neat cherry tomato plant.  I miscounted my tomato cages, so in the extra cage, I planted some cherry tomato seeds.  If it doesn't come up, I will just grab another plant and put it in later.  At the end of the tomato row, I planted about 6 green pepper plants.
If I find some carrot seeds I will sprinkle them between my tomato plants per recommendation of my husbands grandma.  She had great gardens!  She doesn't garden any more because she's too busy and the property owners don't allow it.  I trust her, though, and hope to share some veggies with her.
Pictures to come, but I need to finish out my garden chart.  I include instructions from the package, germination date and harvest expectations.