Out of Control

The plants are getting huge! All three tomato plants have little green tomatoes on them and are about 3 and half feet tall. The pepper plants are a little smaller but getting little peppers as well and the squash have these huge lovely green leaves.

That said, I keep getting little squash fruit with beautiful yellow blossoms then right after they start to fatten up some thing is attacking them. I have been killing ant mounds all around the garden for the last week by dumping boiling water on them (organic pest control) but today I found ants in one of the squash blossoms and no mound around for me to wreak havoc on. I'm really not sure what to do in the way of better pest control. I suppose its time for more research. My other failure this week was with the lettuce. I managed to pick and eat two heads of lettuce and give away a third but the other three just kept growing and I think will be too tough to eat (not mention they are three feet tall and about to blossom themselves). Moral of the story here-- garden is growing fabulously but maybe a little too well, hope friends will welcome free tomatoes, peppers and squash (if it stops rotting off the vine).

In addition to the vegetable garden coming right along, the front garden is full of little plants that I am very hopeful will be flowers. The heat has already come to central Texas, so I don't know how well they will fare but my fingers are crossed.

And finally, because I realized there was not a single picture of her on here. I decided to take one of Lola in the freshly mowed lawn. I am so proud of her- loving, loyal and beautiful. What more could a dog-mom ask for?

Gardens Are Not Vegetarian

First off, I did get a whole lot more time with the plants this week, which is great because they are getting so big. It's like a sped up version of raising children, except you eat them at the end. And speaking of eating them, check out the first head of lettuce I got!

While I have some pretty wonderful pictures on the progress my little plants are making, I do have to lament the loss of one of my 6 zucchini plants. I think it got flattened in a storm, I came home and it was completely snapped off at the base of the stem. Then again, at then end of the day this is probably a good thing because each plant apparently can yield between 60 and 100 squash. I still have no idea what I might do with 300 zucchini but some of you lucky folks might be seeing it at your dinner table.

Now to the title of today's post. To make my plants strong and lovely and maximize fruit bearing, I have been fertilizing them and reading about the different organic fertilizers and pest repellents available. In all this research I found it some what ironic that often the best "organic" fertilizers are made from animal by products. Bone meal is good for roses, and blood meal is good for tomatoes, and then in my own garden I've been using something that was explained to me as ground up fish and seaweed (yum vegetables!). Now, I'm sure corporate farmers have more options than these, like manure and compost, but I still thought it was somewhat odd and maybe a good warning to my organic loving vegetarian friends. All that said, look what the fish guts have done for my plants! The zucchini leaves are the size of dinner plates and my tomatoes are two feet tall!

Now onto the project this week, I have now made 2 attempts to grow more veggies from seed. I keep getting to small seedlings then they die. So this week I invested in a seed starting green house. It was amazing to see the little seedlings sprout up practically overnight. I hope my investment keeps them all from dying off after a week of life. I also must say, it really is amazing to me every time I plant a seed and then look at my strong healthy plants and realize they came from such tiny little starts. Pretty awesome how much potential is in such an itty bitty package.

Finally, the plants I did manage to grow from seed. Basically, I did this randomly and just dumped 4 packages of seed into freshly tilled dirt. Look at all those little plants coming up. Soon they will be flowers and the bed is going to be incredible. Unless the heat gets them first, in which case next year I'm buying bushes.

Gardening in the Dark

Due to a crazy busy work schedule this week, I went without seeing my garden in natural light for four days. That said, I am so excited about the silly garden that I would get home from work late, pull out my purse size L.E.D. flashlight and check on the progress of each little plant. Things are coming along wonderfully. I now have three tomatoes fattening up and looking great, my first banana pepper has easily quadrupled in size (in a week!) and I think I have my first zucchini. Also, the lettuce is ready for harvest and I even had some on a sandwich today. Outside the veggie garden, the most exciting news for this week are the yellow roses blooming along the back fence. The two little rose bushes along the back fence looked every bit of dead after the snow and cold weather in February, but I pruned them heavily and they have come back and the larger one has these spectacular yellow blossoms. I will definitely plant more rose bushes next year, they are so stunning.

I'm a Pepper!

Yep that's right, this week I got my first banana pepper! I'm also up to three tomatoes and the lettuce is growing like a weed in the front and a bit slower int he back (perfect for rotating harvest). This means we are now only steps away from a salad and I could not be more excited!

Also, I finally caved and bought a soaker hose. My original thought was "both sets of my grandparents had beautiful gardens and I know they never had to use soaker hoses, I should not waste money on a soaker hose." Then I realized the soaker hose was $10, hopefully it helps.

The other wonderful thing you will notice is in the back behind the garden I have an entire grove of honeysuckle that has started blooming. It smells incredible! And it will hopefully attract some bees to get my squash pollinated as I have had lots of flowers but no fruit! I think more google research is going to be necessary to determine the problem. The herbs are doing well and the yard still looks good from last weeks mowing. I could not be more proud of my little veggie garden. Oh! and the front garden is getting tons of seedlings check it out! I'm really hoping they turn out to be all the flowers I planted and not a whole bunch of weeds.