Day 35

My largest spinach plant

Everything is looking great so far.  I might add to my garden tomorrow, but I'm not sure we can retill the rest of it so soon.  We need to borrow a rototiller. 
I've been watering every day that it doesn't rain.  I hoed between rows and finally wedded near the plants today.  I accidentally pulled off a few spinach leaves and lettuce leaves while I worked but they tasted good.  My potatoes got fill dirt in the trenches today.  I also thinned out about a dozen green onions.  I brought some to my neighbor but she wasn't home so I'll probably bring them to church to share in the morning.  I checked my chart and everything is right on time including my patio herbs.
My losses are chili peppers and asparagus. 

The garden so far

Insect update

I opted not to treat my garden for insects at this time.  The plants are growing stronger as they are.  The formulas for homemade insecticide all require a waiting period for the spray to become more potent I assume.  Garlic and onion blended up and put into water. Some times hot pepper.  I'm really not excited about putting that on my young plants yet, and there is a warning to test a few leaves first.
I've used a mixture of flour and cayenne before, but I was treating the wrong insect with that combination.  I had squash bugs then and I was able to get rid of them with a solution of original formula liquid dish soap and water squirted directly on those bugs.  It was amazing to see how quickly they keeled over and then it rained and I had soap bubbles in my garden and in my downspouts from the house gutter.  It was funny.  I'm going to prepare a onion garlic solution to have ready for when problems arise again.
Getting ready to put in the green beans, cucumbers and zucchini this weekend.  I might drop some tomatoes in next week too.
Happy gardening!

First Fruits

Well, today I picked some veggies from my garden!  I was going to hear about a local mission and needed to bring a snack item.  I looked about the kitchen and found a bar of cream cheese and some dried beef and crackers.  Needed some green onions.  I went outside and I have several greenies that are ready to be picked. This also will thin them out enough for some of the others to grow bigger.  The first couple I tried had such a good root system that I couldn't get them up and broke them at the stem.  The great thing is that they may just come back up.  I got about 6 green onions to make my dip and it turned out to be wonderful!  I'm so excited to be able run to the patch of soil beside my house rather than the grocery store sometimes!  .... and it's not even May yet!

Potatoes and Insects

Well as I toured my garden today I found that all of my potatoes are successfully growing!!!  So much for my unconventional ways.  We got 0.2 inches of rain last night. The weather channel website said that today was a high need to water plants/grass day. NO!  I was okay with the moisture that came last night and today while at the grocery store, it started pouring and it lasted a while.  I haven't checked the rain guage later today, but I'm pretty sure we got another 0.5 in that downpour.  My cereal boxes got pretty wet from car to house.  I'm still grateful for the rain regardless of the inconvenience with groceries.
Someone at the grocery store told me to be careful because there was "black ice" under the rain.  Naturally with my garden success so far, I was concerned, but only a little. People hydroplane when oil from the road floats on top of water at the beginning of a rainstorm and I think that was her problem.  It was 45 degrees F at the time.  We actually got a bit of thunder with our rain this time too!  I like that!
The bad news is that I found the reason for my gaps in the black-eyed peas.  I've got insects of some sort eating the leaves.  I need to find some way to stop that.  I'm not opposed to chemical pesticides, but I would like to try a natural remedy first if possible. I've pinned some stuff on Pinterest so I'll do some work with that tomorrow.  I also subscribe to Mother Earth News magazine.  It is published in Kansas and I am all about supporting this great state if I can.  I saw some natural pesticides in there too, so tomorrow, the bugs will flee from my garden area.  They can live somewhere else.  If I find something that works, I will post about it and credit the source of information.

Day 23

It has been a little rainy here and we didn't get the tornado weather as was in the forecast for most of our state.  It is supposed to be pretty chilly tonight and there is a frost advisory with a low of 33 tonight.  I'm just going to stick it out.  So far we see no chili peppers so I think I might call that a wash.  We have most of our peas and I'm almost ready for the first harvest of green onions.  I have 10 of 13 potatoes growing.  I'm waiting until they're 6 inches or so before I cover them again.  Black-eyed peas are about 2 inches high now and I thinned them a little.  They are growing at regular intervals and then a 6 inch to 1 foot gap and then good growth and then another gap.  Not too bad, though.  the lettuce is coming up in bunches.  I'm supposed to wait until its a bit bigger to thin it, and eat what I thin.  That's exciting too!  Spinach is interesting because there are some with just the sprout leaves out and others with the first round spinach leaves which are about an inch diameter already.
My hubby keeps asking when I will put the rest of the garden in and it will be the end of April for much of it and then the end of May for the rest.  So for now it is water when necessary and weed control.
Some of my flower pot herbs are sprouting, so I'm hoping for a good harvest there this year too!

Day 17

There's not a lot new to post yet.  I did hoe between rows today.  There were a bunch of little weeds so they had to go.  I still don't trust my seedlings' root system enough to weed to close to them.  When I go back to do the thinning of plants, I will weed the rows themselves.  I want a healthy garden.
The low weekend temp of 34 degrees F might have got a few of my black-eyed peas because a few are yellow. We did the hoeing and watering this morning and we continue to wait!

Peas and Potatoes Anyone?

This was my post from April 7.  Apparently I forgot to publish it.

My peas are breaking ground.  The seeds were a few years old and given to me from family so I put them in to see what I could get.  I got 4 sprouts as of this morning out of 8 or 10 seeds, but they've barely broken ground.  It will be neat to see what comes of them.
I also wondered about my potatoes.  The boots and websites I found to learn how to plant them warn against supermarket potatoes and say only to use certified seed potatoes.  They also tell you to refrigerated and then pull them out and then cut and let eyes form.  Well I didn't do any of that.  I had some potatoes red and yellow and 1 sweet that had sat around too long and got a little soft.  The eyes were growing and it was close to planting time so I kept them in the bin.  I pulled them out and cut chunks with eyes and planted the day I cut them.  Later I realized I planted most upside down.  I was doubting I would get growth, but I found cracked ground at several sites and actual leaves coming up this morning.  I broke almost all of the potato rules and it looks like I at least have plants growing!
All I have yet to see is chili peppers, asparagus and herbs.  Not bad!

Love the Rain!

My garden has been loving the sun, but it also loves the rain!

It rained just over 1/2 inch last night and we checked our rain guage this morning.  Very pleased to say that it is supposed to rain on and off for the rest of the week.  I don't mind watering, but this kind of water is the best for the plants.

Here is a spinach plant surfacing.  They look different than I had imagined them, but I remember from last years plants this grass-like seedling.





My onions all in a row look pretty good.  The pics are kind of bad, but I'm happy with the true results.




Celery was our experiment.  When I chopped up my celery for eating, I saved the stump of it and cut the tops of it evenly.  I let it soak on the counter while I awaited my garden area to be made ready.  We had to borrow a rototiller.  Ours is a tiny one that we used for little garden boxes and we have a garden space this year.  As soon as the soil was tilled, I put this in at the end of the onion/potato row.  I just covered the bottom of the stump with dirt and left the top and the growth above ground.  The stump part is now withering and the new growth is looking pretty good!






Here are my black-eyed peas.  Coming up nicely in a row.  I think I will be thinning them as early as next week.  I will remove the string that guided my row in the next day or so.  I left the string there so that I could get a feel for where to look for sprouts.




This is my first year for lettuce and this is the Bibb variety.  I didn't know what to look for as they sprouted and my string was a great tool for me.  I now see many similar sprouts along my string.  We were a little careless with these seeds as they were so tiny!  It said to plant the seeds every 2 inches to start, but I had a hard time getting just 1 seed in each hole, so my sprouts are in clusters like this.  I can thin them later.  On the bottom of the picture you can see a weed with a different shade of green.  I will pull these when I thin the lettuce plants out.  I'm afraid to do it too soon and grab seeds and sprouts with the roots.

I plan to hoe between rows to keep the weeds down.  My husband thinks we should use the little rototiller between the rows, but I don't trust myself to go in a straight line.  We'll see!

Day 9

WooHoo! I have black-eyed peas (cowpeas) sprouting! I didn't get to watering this morning because of church, but my daughter and I watered the garden after lunch today. I don't think it hurt anything to wait, but I like the morning watering routine. I've also been hitting it in the evening as well if it has been over 75 degrees. 89 degrees F on April 1? That's just crazy. It is supposed to be pretty windy here tomorrow and the temp is supposed to drop to the low 60's. Kansas. What else can I say?
I will grab a pic tomorrow of my lovely sprouts. Almost all of my onion sets are growing. I haven't seen anything of the Asparagus, peas, chili peppers, lettuce, potatoes or spinach yet. In time, I know. Herbs aren't supposed to germinate for another week or so either. Water, water, water. Patience, patience, patience. I'm starting to see weeds, but I won't pull any too near my seeds or seedlings yet because I don't want to uproot the wrong thing.

Even with the temps, it was a lovely day!