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Jun. 21st, 2010 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluesgardenThere are little elves with pick-axes in my brain again. It's nice to know that I'm keeping them in steady employment. Here, have some pictures! Not of elves, let alone with pick-axes, but of gardening related things. I don't feel like this is really the catching-up post I need to do, but this is some of it. I'll endeavour to take a wider variety of pictures the next go round. :)
Not a picture from the garden precisely but it's food that's growing nearby so it totally counts. Not as nearby but still on the agenda: cherries. The orchard I bought apples from last year has sweet cherries now and tart cherries beginning in July. It's still a 20-30 minute drive, but I can't seem to find anywhere in our county despite rummaging through PickYourOwn.org, LocalHarvest.org, and whatnot. There is one that has red and black raspberries which should be opening up late-June (as in June 30th) through mid-July, so I need to give them a call and see what they're estimating for this year.
I planted beans in the empty spaces where ones didn't germinate/were eaten by the frakkin rodents in the first set. I could only do it for the ones I had extras of (Knearly Yellow Eye and Fin de Bagnol, I believe) but they were the ones with the most spaces to fill, so it worked out okay. They began to appear just a few days ago - this one is about two days old.
The crickets have arrived! They apparently like mint.
They also apparently like peppers, sunflowers, basil...
Here we have a Sky & Ice flower that isn't sure whether it wants to represent the Sky or the Ice portion of its mix. They look like they have a blackberry for a center, don't they?
I liked this one as you can see the pattern on the back of the bee itself - which, granted, is easier on a larger version than this small-for-posting size.
Ohhhh, a healthy tomato plant! I'd say it's the exception rather than the rule, but they really are all over the board. We decided that some of the plants were struggling likely due to needing nitrogen because the soil that was used to build up the garden has been laying, packed, at the bottom of a ditch in a largely anaerobic environment, which would have prevented decomposition. Now that it's all fluffed up and tilled in, the decomposition can take place, which is fine other than the fact that the process of decay uses up nitrogen. To this point, I'd been operating essentially as if I had the same soil as last year, just with more rocks, and therefore hadn't fertilized much.
This past week, I distributed a pellet type dry fertilizer amongst the corn, sunflowers, pumpkins, beans (yes, they make their own nitrogen, but this was an 'oh why the heck not, they could need P and K!' moment), and cucumbers, which are doing okay and I thought would be fine with the slower acting version. The tomatoes and peppers called for a faster intervention, so I used Miracle-Gro which has an analysis of 24-8-16, then four days later, I used Miracle-Gro for Tomatoes on said tomatoes along with the original Miracle-Gro on the peppers. Miracle-Gro for Tomatoes is actually different - it has an analysis of 18-18-21 - but they both dissolve in water and are distributed to the plants via watering can.
Yesterday evening I watered everything to help begin the pellet fertilizer begin to break down into the soil and to move the liquid fertilizer a bit deeper to the roots, as well as to moisten the soil/mulch and help the plants brace for today's heat. They are starting to perk up a bit, but it's slow going this year.
On the other hand, the weeds are growing just fine. Yes, this is a weed, technically, although I'll be interested to see it bloom. Anyone know what it is? They're quite a few of them spread throughout the garden.
Other items of note: The pumpkins, melons, and watermelons are all starting to flower. Just about to begin flowering are the beans and potatoes. The tomatoes keep trying but I keep explaining to them that they're much too small to be going about that business and plucking the blooms right back off. Except for the Sweet Million tomato plant in the container, which is all grown-up and loaded with 'em, and the squirrelly models that weathered the rain in the compost pile, which I figure can do whatever they jolly well please as I've given up trying to tell them to do anything in particular.
The pumpkins actually have a few weeee tiny ones starting to grow, which I just noticed last night. Then there's D's pumpkin/melon growing project that he just decided he wanted to do (and whether they'll have time to ripen is anyones guess) but more on that another day. The real miracle of the week: I HAVE PEAS. They're also wee tiny but they exist! It's really kind of shocking. These are the ones I planted before the flooding, remember - well after they should have been planted and they've since been drowned and survived through hot and steamy summer temps. Total win. \o/
Finally, the newly planted: a half a row of carrots (4 varieties), a third of a row of lettuce (2 varieties), and an additional row of sweet corn. That makes 3 rows of sweet corn so far, and a fourth row to be planted in a week or two. The carrot and lettuce in containers continue to grow, the lettuce doing especially well since I moved it to the picnic table and away from where the rodents apparently considered it quite tasty. I still need to plant the rosemary and three extra pepper plants.
Happy Solstice, everyone!!
Not a picture from the garden precisely but it's food that's growing nearby so it totally counts. Not as nearby but still on the agenda: cherries. The orchard I bought apples from last year has sweet cherries now and tart cherries beginning in July. It's still a 20-30 minute drive, but I can't seem to find anywhere in our county despite rummaging through PickYourOwn.org, LocalHarvest.org, and whatnot. There is one that has red and black raspberries which should be opening up late-June (as in June 30th) through mid-July, so I need to give them a call and see what they're estimating for this year.
I planted beans in the empty spaces where ones didn't germinate/were eaten by the frakkin rodents in the first set. I could only do it for the ones I had extras of (Knearly Yellow Eye and Fin de Bagnol, I believe) but they were the ones with the most spaces to fill, so it worked out okay. They began to appear just a few days ago - this one is about two days old.
The crickets have arrived! They apparently like mint.
They also apparently like peppers, sunflowers, basil...
Here we have a Sky & Ice flower that isn't sure whether it wants to represent the Sky or the Ice portion of its mix. They look like they have a blackberry for a center, don't they?
I liked this one as you can see the pattern on the back of the bee itself - which, granted, is easier on a larger version than this small-for-posting size.
Ohhhh, a healthy tomato plant! I'd say it's the exception rather than the rule, but they really are all over the board. We decided that some of the plants were struggling likely due to needing nitrogen because the soil that was used to build up the garden has been laying, packed, at the bottom of a ditch in a largely anaerobic environment, which would have prevented decomposition. Now that it's all fluffed up and tilled in, the decomposition can take place, which is fine other than the fact that the process of decay uses up nitrogen. To this point, I'd been operating essentially as if I had the same soil as last year, just with more rocks, and therefore hadn't fertilized much.
This past week, I distributed a pellet type dry fertilizer amongst the corn, sunflowers, pumpkins, beans (yes, they make their own nitrogen, but this was an 'oh why the heck not, they could need P and K!' moment), and cucumbers, which are doing okay and I thought would be fine with the slower acting version. The tomatoes and peppers called for a faster intervention, so I used Miracle-Gro which has an analysis of 24-8-16, then four days later, I used Miracle-Gro for Tomatoes on said tomatoes along with the original Miracle-Gro on the peppers. Miracle-Gro for Tomatoes is actually different - it has an analysis of 18-18-21 - but they both dissolve in water and are distributed to the plants via watering can.
Yesterday evening I watered everything to help begin the pellet fertilizer begin to break down into the soil and to move the liquid fertilizer a bit deeper to the roots, as well as to moisten the soil/mulch and help the plants brace for today's heat. They are starting to perk up a bit, but it's slow going this year.
On the other hand, the weeds are growing just fine. Yes, this is a weed, technically, although I'll be interested to see it bloom. Anyone know what it is? They're quite a few of them spread throughout the garden.
Other items of note: The pumpkins, melons, and watermelons are all starting to flower. Just about to begin flowering are the beans and potatoes. The tomatoes keep trying but I keep explaining to them that they're much too small to be going about that business and plucking the blooms right back off. Except for the Sweet Million tomato plant in the container, which is all grown-up and loaded with 'em, and the squirrelly models that weathered the rain in the compost pile, which I figure can do whatever they jolly well please as I've given up trying to tell them to do anything in particular.
The pumpkins actually have a few weeee tiny ones starting to grow, which I just noticed last night. Then there's D's pumpkin/melon growing project that he just decided he wanted to do (and whether they'll have time to ripen is anyones guess) but more on that another day. The real miracle of the week: I HAVE PEAS. They're also wee tiny but they exist! It's really kind of shocking. These are the ones I planted before the flooding, remember - well after they should have been planted and they've since been drowned and survived through hot and steamy summer temps. Total win. \o/
Finally, the newly planted: a half a row of carrots (4 varieties), a third of a row of lettuce (2 varieties), and an additional row of sweet corn. That makes 3 rows of sweet corn so far, and a fourth row to be planted in a week or two. The carrot and lettuce in containers continue to grow, the lettuce doing especially well since I moved it to the picnic table and away from where the rodents apparently considered it quite tasty. I still need to plant the rosemary and three extra pepper plants.
Happy Solstice, everyone!!
