May 25, 2009

Happy Memorial Day all. I hope you made use of the somber holiday to spread life throughout your garden.  Following my utterly exhausting day yesterday, I slept in and got a bit done at my folks place before heading to another BBQ, late as usual for this weekend.  We had fun, but thankfully for the garden's sake it ended early. When I got home I got out into the garden finally. 

I knew this weekend of beautiful weather would do wonders for the garden, and I was right.  We now have cantaloupe sprouts, watermelon and the corn is about 3 inches high.  What's even more special is that I even saw a few broccoli heads starting to form.  That's great since they're now shading the cauliflower and cukes behind them too badly.  Oops. 

Well, that's it for the cool stuff I didn't take pictures of.  Mainly I spent my time over at the potato bins.  I knew I was in for a bunch of soil adding with all the sun we've had.  I had left a bit more than an inch, maybe 3 last time I hilled last week.  Today I had another 6-8 inches of growth.  Amazing.  I'm not sure if it's bad or not, but there were even flowers starting to form.  That's not good if they're stopping growth and heading straight to potato formation this early.  Time will tell.  All I can do is continue to hill. 

I must admit that having 2 bins is about all I could stand.  My back was killing me after hilling each plant by the handfull.  It took two bags of Mel's Mix and another set of boards per bin.  I suppose I could use a scoop of some kind, but this works and I feel better, closer to the dirt my way.  Here's a shot of about how much I tend to leave.



All the lower branches of each plant got burried after I positioned them into a bare spot in the bin, hoping the potatoes grow where I want them.  I've had a few questions about my bins lately, and although I always try to personally reply to questions via email, I thought I'd share this pic with everyone as it seems to be a common issue.  Hope this helps.

While I was watering this part of my garden (I watered the raised beds yesterday), I couldn't help but notice the blueberry bushes are covered in flowers and/or berry starts.



And my other original planting...



Not bad for the second year in the ground.  I can't wait for these babbies to be 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide, hehe.

Speaking of tall plants, look at how well the garlic's growing.  I don't know what type garlic I'm growing, but I would love to know if I can harvest the greens for use as garlic flavored green onions?



I know it's tough to tell how tall they are, but that's about 2 feet.  This bed is constantly in need of weeding because I did a very poor job of it when I planted my blueberries.  My folks think I should use the front of this concrete raised bed for strawberries.  I may though I like the idea of containers for strawberries better.  If only I had room for them. Maybe I could hang them from the fence, hehe.  Go vertical?

Hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend.  Mine was about as horrible as it could be with such miraculous weather and two parties attended.  I am going to be so exhausted at work I'll be useless, and still need to desperately mow my lawn.  Hope you enjoy your garden~!