July 8, 2008

Sorry for the brief hiatus.  Working 12 hour days has made it so that I have had to convince my wife to water my garden for me.  Thankfully I'm trying out the deep watering technique Grandpop1 talked abou on GW to encourage deep roots and healthier plants. Maybe it will even allow me to go away for a long weekend and not have to ask my 86 year old neighbor to water.

Anyway, not much to report since I haven't been home enough to garden.  Friday I will be putting together a huge salad for 30 people in my office.  Unfortunately there are 4 salads being brought to the pot luck, but to the best of my knowledge, mine's the only home grown one.  Hehe a co-worker convinced me not to buy tomatoes for it and just use what I've got in my garden (no samonela tomatoes for him thank you) hehe.

Well, this evening when I got home, my kids were itching to get outside so I went out and fluffed my two compost bins.  Unfortunately the original bed doesn't quite look finished.  I don't know why it won't heat up. I sent an email to the composting oracle (Joe at Ft2Garden.com), so hopefully he'll come through again for me despite me not catching the shrooms for a clear pic for him.  Hehe he's the only guy I know that likes to identify wild mushrooms from pictures.  To each their own. hehe.  Anyway, it was hard work but the second bin is coming along nicely.  I figure it will be ready to use in no time if I don't add to it.  Of course the only way that'll happen is if Joe says to add greens to the first bin to get it started again.  That's a possiblitity because I'm still seeing maple chain saw dust and some tissue paper, meaning the browns haven't been decomposed yet.  It doesn't concern me about the maple chips, because they are hardwoods after all, but the tissue should be gone.  Of course it was a partial roll of TP that my youngest dropped in the toilet.

On brighter news, today is a ton of pics.  In just a few days it seems the garden has grown measurably.  Take a gander...



Take a look at those babies!  I tried to get another cluster but unfortunately the picture was blurry.  Maybe tomorrow.  So far the count is 8 tomatoes on the Early Girl and one on the Momomoto.   Makes sence since Early Girl is an early producer and Momomoto is a mid season variety.  Right next to the tomato bin are Judy's marigolds she sent me (by the way, I received my cantaloupe seeds today so I've got to get hopping on the SWC restoration).



Well, since I'm sharing pics from over this way in my garden, here is great pic of my pole beans topping out at over 7 feet.  I had to redirect two plants back down the trellis because they were going to climb the house!  I don't want to invite ants in the house by playing Ant and the Beanstalk!  hehe



If you look you can see the skimpy tomatoes in the bottom corner, they're growing on top and using the trellis, so that's a good sign.  So, moving to the right of the tomatoes now, does it look like I've been harvesting peas?  Well I have.



And at the very bottom you can see some of the surviving bush beans.  A few of them are even getting flowers on them! I think that means I should be getting beans soon.  I can't wait to taste test the two types of bush beans compared to the pole beans to see which I like best!  If I don't grow corn next year because it doesn't do well here, I'll likely grow more of the staples for preserving and beans are one of those.

In that same bed (actually in the bottom right corner of the pea pic) you can see my broccoli leaves.  Which by the way they're shading the basil for part of the day, as well as a nice 3 square row of succession spinach that is hopefully a long ways away from the infected ones (I cut away a dozen munched leaves today).  Anyway, look at this baby!  Hehe I once grew a broccoli THIS BIG!



Well, it's been a while since I shared my onions. If you can believe it, they've gotten even bigger!  I can't seem to use them fast enough. Boy was I mistaken to plant them all at the same time thinking I didn't need to succession plant them (I have one square newly planted for fall harvest next to my carrots in bed #1).



As you can see the radishes are almost all gone or starting to bolt. One is about the size of a golf ball, hehe that should be good.  And behind the onions...



Cukes! hehe, nobody told me that the stems were prickly.  Same goes for the radishes, no fair!  But you can see that the cukes are finally reaching the trellis.  Going to be fun to train them.

Finally, my corn bed.  If you were wondering if fertilizing helped, take a look at the bed now, realizing that I only fertilized two rows...



And speaking of corn, in the first two stalks that sprouted something odd's happening.  I'm pretty sure it's normal, but what do I know, I've never grown corn.  It's cool regardless!

I hope that doesn't mean it's stopped growing taller.  I thought they were supposed to grow 5-6 feet.  Hehe I haven't even set up the horizontal trellis yet!

Well, that just about does it for my garden tour today.  I deep watered again so let's hope it is good for a few days.  The weather's perfect for growing. Sunny and 75.  Don't I wish I could enjoy it with some time off.  Grrr. 

Frankly, I've just about had it at work.  It's just too stressful. There are definitely not enough hours in the day and I just keep getting further and further behind.  If it weren't for my garden, I think I would have lost it by now.  Gardens are GREAT therapy for stress.  If you'd like share your stress relief stories below.  I'd love to hear them!

Definely enjoy your garden!