September 28, 2009

Where have I been hiding?  Well, sitting at my computer.  I think I've mentioned that I have an addictive personality.  Well, when the site was down, I got hooked on Facebook and the various apps that it entails.  /sigh  Can you say time-sink? 

Anyway, I felt compelled to post tonight so I'm back.  I promise to try to squeeze in a post as often as I've got something to say.  This is the time where there is not much happening in the garden.  My tomatoes have all succumed to blight or whatever, as did my cantaloupe. 



Unfortunately the Minnesota Midget Cantaloupe never got beyond baseball size.  I know they're supposed to be small, but not THAT small.  So now I've got two seasons of growing those under my belt and have come to the conclusion that they just don't work in my climate.  I know others have made it work, but I'm guessing it's in a greenhouse.  Last year I planted late and they never got beyond golf ball size.  This year I had them in my container ASAP after the last frost date and look at the results.  It's just not hot enough for them to mature in their 57 day window. 

Thankfully I've got two tomato plants that may still have a shot.  One was a volunteer and the other was a sucker transplant. 



This volunteer basically took over the carrot section and the isle... I ran out of tomato cages.  It's got some great looking tomatoes on it, but they're still green.  I may have to pull them and let them redden inside.  It worked last year so I'm hopeful if it comes to that.

I hope you're late summer garden looks better than mine!

September 10, 2009

Alright, you asked for it, you get pics of my disasterous garden.  In my defense, I'm almost out of broccoli and caulflower seeds and they've turned into a big hit with the big people in my family (namely my wife, who is the first person to tell you she hates those veggies).  So I decided after the plants flowered that I'd see what it took to make them go to seed.  The bumblebees loved them so I let them stay.  The bees were a welcome addition to that area of my garden.

Well, now they look like this...



I think each of those pods needs to dry out and inside are about 10 seeds.  When I opened one earlier they had about that many green seeds. 

Of course I have since seen the package and thee Fiesta broccoli from Territorial is a hybrid.  Oh well, no harm no foul.  These will make a welcome addition to the compost pile. 

Speaking of which, I haven't been doing much adding to it this year.  Three years out from the last time I weed and fed my lawn, it didn't grow at all all summer.  It really didn't turn majorly brown either, just didn't grow.  I'll take that from an effort perspective, but it makes me quite shy of greens in mass quantities for my compost pile.  I figure with the kitchen compost and leaves that are bound to start falling, I'll have one more major flip before I put it to bed for the winter.  For greens I'll use these plants and some handy coffee grounds from Starbucks. 

Lastly, I thought I'd take an overview pic of my garden to scare you all into going out this weekend and cleaning up yours, hehe.  Needless to say the major winner this year were the carrots.  I swear my kids is turning into a rabbit.



Oh, and that monster in the picture is a volunteer tomato plant.  No clue what type it is, but it looks healthy enough.  I figured if I had tomato volunteers I'd just leave them and see what happened.  So far it looks like I'll have a late crop of salad makings, even if I have to ripen them inside.  Not Judy and EG kind of second crop, but pretty decent for the Pacific Northwest.

Enjoy your garden, and let folks know I'm back.  It's kinda lonely without the 400+ folks reading my blog each day, hehe.

September 9, 2009

Well, I didn't get a chance to get out to the garden tonight.  As is typical these days, I rushed home from work, changed clothes, raced to the soccer field to relieve my wife so she could go to a meeting.  After practice, I took my eldest to my folks to meet up with my youngest, had a bit of dinner, helped with a project and brought the kids home to bed.  Rinse repeat.  Frankly I've been lucky to water my SWCs because they're a closed system and rain doesn't help them.  I thought I had some pics of the garden on my phone but don't, so alas, you'll have to wait another day until I can get out and snap some shots.  Trust me, it will make your garden look good.

September 8, 2009

Wow, boy how time flies.  I can't believe it's been a whole month since my last post.  I almost forgot my passwords and how to navigate my blog.  As you can tell from the August 1st comments, my patron Judy has been working diligently over the last month to convince the host company that there was a problem on their end causing all of the FT2Garden.com sites to be down. 

I have been keeping busy with summer activities, mostly non-garden related.  Gettting my eldest ready for Kindergarten has been a chore, but now my baby is all grown up and started school today.  /sigh.

Well, short post for tonight. All I can say is YAY!  I'm so glad to not only get my blog back, but all the old data is back.  Thank you Judy for backing everything up.  So sorry that most of your backups were corrupt and you lost the last year. 

Let folks know that may care.  I plan on posting almost daily like normal.  I hope you enjoyed your summer and as always, Enjoy your garden!