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.