Fruit garden update and pictures

Strawberries on the left, cantaloupe in the middle and watermelon on the right. After a very slow start, the cantaloupe and watermelon plants have finally started to take off.

This bed has strawberries, and two rows of cantaloupe

This has nothing to do with the fruit garden, but this is one of the rose bushes that Mike took out a few weeks ago. Someone forgot to tell it that it had been removed and discarded! That just goes to show you how resilient and prolific fairy roses can be.

This is the very overgrown garden just off the back deck. We put most of this in about 8 years ago and it now needs some attention, but I don't think it will get it this year. In this view, you can see the day lilies, several pink fairy rose bushes and part of the gorgeous climbing New Dawn on the fence. A couple of weeks ago, this area was covered with pink blooms. It was so pretty, but I don't think I got any pictures. There is also a very small crape myrtle tree just behind those fairies, that needs to be transplanted to the front yard. It just doesn't get enough sunlight to grow and bloom as it is right on the edge of the where the thickly forested yard area begins. My mom gave it to me many years ago and it only grows an inch or two a year and has never bloomed. I hope we can get that moved soon. The front yard crape myrtle should be blooming soon. Most of the other varieties are already in full bloom around here, but mine is a very late blooming variety called Sioux. I don't expect it to start blooming for a few more weeks.

A close up of one of the day lilies. This one is a very unusual reddish/deep pink color, almost maroon in the middle. Very pretty, with large blooms.

Garden update with pictures-front porch

Basil, Sweet Alyssum, and Viola

I was so excited to go out on the front porch today and see this cute little violas blooming. I had kind of forgotten about them and suddenly there they were! I've never planted these before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Usually my front porch plants are dead or dying by this time of summer because I forget to water them, but this year mother nature took care of that by raining almost every single day for the past two and a half months!

I had to crop my foot out of this one! Excuse the broken to bits planter, it is 9 years old and I think it is time to replace it.

Compost

Yay! I'm getting a compost pile! Mike is home today and is setting up a compost pile for the garden. Who would have thought I would ever be excited about a compost pile? I really need to get a life!

Here you go!

I've had a lot on my mind lately, People! That is why I haven't been blogging. Here is a quick garden update and some pretty pictures I took of the sky last night. I will really try to blog about something more interesting later! I promise (to try, not necessarily to do it!).

Alex looked out the window while we were cooking dinner and noticed this beautiful sky

The plants on the left are zucchini, the two small ones in the middle are strawberries and the larger plants on the right and top are tomatoes. I have a cute little green baby roma and a lot of flowers! I'm so excited.

I know this one is really blurry, but that is my only strawberry! I had three strawberry flowers, but something ate the other two.

The Romas

Lettuce and another row of heirloom tomatoes. You can't see them too well in any of these pictures, but the carrots are doing very well, also.

Strawberry plants

The strawberry plants have been in the ground for four days now and they are all showing lots of signs of life, except for one.

The clematis' are blooming

This one is actually a clematis at the bottom and my Joseph's Coat Roses

The roses are blooming!

More garden photos

Sorry, boring, I know, but this is my official garden record.

Last night I planted 26 bare root strawberry plants. That was 22 hours ago and almost all of them already have fresh growth on them! That is what I love about bare root plants, they are cheap and they generally take off right away. I planted some in the new fruit beds and some in the larger garden, where the stepping stones now made planting in the middle possible. I'm not sure how harvesting will go, though, it is pretty hard to stand on those stones and bend down and keep your balance at the same time. I figured that out last night as I was planting the strawberries! It was quite an effort.

The two new fruit beds, now planted with Cantaloupe, Watermelon, and Strawberries. Trellis' are next.

That darn garden thief has struck again! This time it chewed almost all of Roma tomato plant #2. Ugh! I tried putting some pieces of wood along the bottom of the fence. I'm sure that won't be a perfect fix, but should hold it until Mike can figure out something more efficient. He already stapled mesh fencing to the picket fence, but they are pushing it up and getting in underneath. I think we might have to secure some more mesh along the top of the garden floor, as well.

UPDATE: It wasn't a Roma tomato plant, after all, it was one of the heirloom plants! I'm extra upset about that because I was already wishing I had bought more and they are much harder to come by than the Romas.

This is my make-shift dog keeper outer thingee! We didn't have enough fencing left to fence off the new beds and Wrigley just runs right through them, so Mike used what was left and attached it to the downspout and wheelbarrow. I added the toy slide when Wrigley decided to try to fit himself under the wheelbarrow!

The holly bush, azaleas and daisies on the side of the house. These are just on the other side of the fence from the new fruit beds.

For Denise: The thornless rose

Denise, I decided to answer your comment here because I keep forgetting the exact name of this rose and I can never do a search on it. I figured if I put it on here, I will be able to find it much easier. If you ever need something else to grow on your deck lattice, it would be perfect because it smells so beautiful. It does grow to be HUGE, though, so if you ever get one, be careful to plant it where it will have a lot of room!

The climbing, thornless rose I took a picture of is called ZÉPHIRINE DROUHIN. It is the easiest to grow rose I have ever had.

Misc. Pictures

If you are squeamish, don't scroll down to the last picture. It isn't too gross, but it is a picture of Steven's finger, just before the stitches were removed.

Some of the heirloom tomatoes

The leave and stick piles Mike has been building up. The leaves are patiently waiting to be turned into compost and the sticks are waiting until it is safe to have a fire.

Mikey's hard work behind the sunroom. He cleared out two huge climbing rose bushes and pruned and tied the remaining one. Now we just have to remove two more rose bushes, remove the tree seedlings that planted themselves, and transplant the hydrangea and the camellia, that are growing on the side of the sunroom.

Alex took this shot at the end of the garage sale

Steven's finger, just before the stitches were removed

Garden Update

No more plants have disappeared from my garden, thank goodness! The five remaining Roma tomato plants are doing great. They are betting really full and bushy and growing really quickly. One of the heirloom tomato plants I ordered had a flower on it. They are still very small, so I nipped it off, which killed me, but I know the plants need to develop before they can concentrate on fruiting. The zucchini is growing like crazy. It sprouted after the broccoli and cauliflower, but now has far surpassed both in growth. I'm actually a little worried about the broccoli and cauliflower, they just don't seem to be doing to well, but I'm going to be patient for a while longer, while hoping that they are just slow to get going.

Mike filled the two 3' x 5' planters, he built last weekend, with dirt, peat, and manure. I planted 3 rows of cantaloupe and one row of watermelon. I have two rows left to plant the strawberry plants that are being delivered today. Some of those will fit in the bigger raised bed, now that Mike put in some stepping stones for me. We built that last year and I didn't know what I was doing and I had him build it too wide. Dumb! I have short little arms and can't reach to the middle at all. The stepping stones take away some of the planting space, but I couldn't get it to any of it without them, so I think its a decent solution to the problem. Mike is going to build a heavy duty trellis for me next weekend, so I can grow the cantaloupes up, so they won't need as much room.

This is my favorite climbing rose bush and the only one in the backyard that we are not cutting down. It doesn't have any thorns and it has the most gorgeous flowers, with a great, sweet scent. This is the first flower, a little small, but the rest will probably be a lot bigger. Mike trimmed it and tied it back up to the trellis yesterday and it looks so much better.

This is a picture of the remaining canes from one of the other climbers that Mike cut down. There is a live bird's next in it, so he left it. I can't wait to see the babies!

This is a close up of one of the zucchini plants

My new stepping stones!

The two new planters with cantaloupe and watermelon. Strawberries will go in tonight, hopefully!

Something fishy going on in my garden

I went out to check the garden today, to see if the storms yesterday had done any damage. I was happy to see that 3 more zucchini plants had sprouted since yesterday. I was shocked and horrified to see that one of my newly planted Roma tomato plants was missing! Yes, missing, not chewed on, not pulled out of the ground and lying next to the garden, but completely missing. Not a trace of it remains. The tomato cage is completely intact and there is a small round hole where the plant used to be. What the heck? I got a sweet deal on those Roma tomatoes, too. They were on a one day only, buy one get one free promotion. It is bad enough if the plant that was stolen was a free one, but if it is one I paid for, I am going to be really mad!

I don't have much experience with gardens, but don't animals usually just nibble on the plants, not kidnap them? The garden is fenced all the way around and I saw one spot where a rabbit or other small animal could have gotten in, I suppose. There were no animal prints or anything. I wonder if the Forensic Files producers would be interested in this case? I'm sending the kids out to get the mail so I can check it for ransom notes!

The evidence

Garden Update

Wow, I just looked at the pictures from July 6th of the cherry tomatoes and lettuce that Shauna and I planted in pots on the front porch. They have really taken off in the last week, especially the lettuce, which will be ready to eat soon. I wish I had gotten more lettuce in before it got too hot. None of the lettuce seeds we planted in the back garden germinated.



I wonder if I can plant lettuce at the end of summer, for harvesting before the first frost? Hmmm, I'll have to look into that.

Alex took a picture of the house and you can see how nice the new grass is looking. Still a lot of bare spots, but it is filling in nicely, thanks to all the rain this summer

Garden Update

The seeds we planted have not fared too well. Not surprising, since we planted about 2 months too late for the area. We seem to have only a few carrots, even though we planted 8 square feet of them. None of the 3 square feet of lettuce we planted in the back came up at all. The lettuce in front is growing slowly, but surely, as evidenced by yesterday's pictures.

There is one golf ball sized tomato on the Red Celebrity Bush. I spotted at least 6 tiny tomatoes on the Yellow Pear Bush and one or two on the Red Beefsteaks. The Yellow Pears will probably be the first to ripen since they are a small salad variety. I was expecting Early Girl to be first, but I don't think there are even blooms on those. Interesting. At least all of the tomato plants survived the transplant. I was looking at my next door neighbor's garden and his tomato plants are way bigger than ours. I know I should have picked off the blooms and let the plants develop first, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Of course, Trevor got his in on time, I'm sure, so they've had a lot more time to grow.

The cantaloupe and watermelon seem to be doing pretty well, but no blooms yet. The plants are still rather small for that. I'm not sure if they will get big enough to set fruit, but time will tell.

The zucchini have been growing nicely and two of them even have blooms already turning into tiny zucchini. Yay!

The cucumbers were from seed and about half of them took. I guess we should think them to one per hill, as we planted 3 per hill. Several hills have none. They are still really tiny, just starting to get their true leaves. I'm not a big cucumber fan, but Mike is so I hope we get at least a few. I would love to make pickles, but I don't have the right kinds of jars and such, so I'm not sure I'll do that this year. When I was in fifth grade, our class made garlic pickles and they were the best pickles I ever tasted. I would love to have the recipe and make those. If I recall, they were very easy to make.

I can't wait until next year, when we get everything in on time, hopefully! I would like for Mike to bring in my old plant stand and lights. I used to grow African Violets, but I think we can get new light bulbs and use them for starting seeds indoors next Spring. I'm hoping to put in at least one more garden and expand to include strawberries, at least. I'm not sure any strawberries would actually make it into the house. With the way our family loves them, I have a feeling they will be snatched up at the first sign of redness!

I would like to have extras from the garden so the kids could sell them, lemonade stand style, to earn a little spending money. That won't happen this year, but maybe next.

Flower Garden Spring 2008

My climbing New Dawn Rose Bush in the backyard
Hannah in front of same rose bush
My backyard pink Fairy rosebush almost ready to bloom
Climbing, thornless 'Zephirine Drouhin' next to back deck and sunroom. This rose bush is awesome!
Shauna on the back deck, May 2008

Carrots

I noticed today that some carrots are starting to sprout in the garden. One of the zucchini plants died and one of the cantaloupe plants, also. Everything else seems to be growing pretty well.

The lettuce in the pots on the front porch are really starting to grow. Shauna and I are going to have to go out and thin them big time because we really over planted. That was before I did the research and found out what I was supposed to be doing!

I hope I remember to put some eggshells out around the cherry tomato on the front porch.

Green Grass & Tomatoes

The new lawn, just before the netting was taken off

Yay! We actually have a front lawn! We had the hill that serves as our front yard seeded on May 25th and yesterday Steven and his friend, Jeff, took the netting off and revealed green grass. Long green grass that needed to be cut today. Wonder of wonders, Drew actually cut it for me! He hasn't cut the grass in years. Granted, it is only a small part, straw is still covering some of the grass, so that part hasn't been cut yet. Still, he usually won't do anything for me anymore, so this is big.

The grass looks really good. It is a lot of crab grass, but that is okay for now. At least it covers most of the dirt and the erosion problem is gone for now. We can always reseed in the fall and get better grass going for next spring. Drew said he was surprised that the lawn isn't as level as it looks. We had so much dirt delivered (two huge truckloads) and I guess some of it sank a bit.

Shauna was upset yesterday because she found a tiny green tomato on our cherry tomato on the front porch. She was trying to get a closer look at it and it came off. She felt bad, but I'm sure more will be coming very soon. The plant looks nice and strong and healthy and has several flowers. There is also a tiny green tomato on one of the plants in the big garden! I know I should pinch it off and let the plant concentrate on leafing out, but I can't bring myself to do it!

Also, our cucumber seeds are coming up already! Four have germinated and we only planted them 5 days ago. The lettuce on the front porch has been taking forever to germinate. It was supposed to take 7-10 days and here it is 3 weeks later and we only have about six tiny two leaf seedlings. I hope it starts to take off soon!

Our First Veggie Garden

Shauna has been wanting to start a vegetable garden since we moved to this house in 2000. Mike finally built us a really nice 16' X 6' raised garden bed! This will be our experimenting year, as we have no clue what we are doing. I have done some internet research (my specialty!) and we are trying out square foot gardening.

We are really late in the season to be just planting, but oh well. We should have had our plants in around mid April. We only started the actual planting yesterday. Mike started the beds a few weeks ago, but it took so much dirt to fill. We ended up having to buy 92 bags of dirt and humus to fill the bed. It would have been much easier to have the dirt delivered, but our house is on a steep hill and there is no way to get the truck to the backyard. That would mean we would have to bring the dirt up in wheelbarrows, from the street. It was easier to just get the bags and bring them home a few at a time. At least I think that was easier.

If this works out, i would love to have a few more beds next year. We all LOVE strawberries (except for Alex, who doesn't love them all that much) and it would be awesome to have our own strawberry beds.

Yesterday, Shauna and I planted 13 tomato plants. This morning we planted 6 zucchini plants, 5 watermelon plants and 9 cantaloupe plants. We also planted Romaine lettuce seeds, carrot seeds and cucumber seeds. Shauna and I had planted a cherry tomato plant and bibb and leaf lettuce in some posts on the front porch two week ago. A couple of the lettuce seedlings appeared yesterday and the tomato is growing nicely, with several flowers on it already.

When we were done planting, Mike came out and put up a fence around the bed. Hopefully, this will keep the dog and other animals out. As we were raking the dirt to level it yesterday, Wrigley decided that it would be great fun to run through the bed and even lie down in the middle and refuse to get out! Shauna and I did not think it was so much fun since we had to re-rake every time he messed it up.