lettuce – That's Just Me

Gardening Diary: Busy Bees Buzzing

I was weeding the vegetable garden this morning, and it made me so happy to hear the sound of working bumble bees buzzing in my blossoms. A few whizzed by my ear, and it’s funny but it didn’t scare me or make me flinch. Oh how times have changed.

I’m in the thick of it, working side by side with bugs!

What’s New?

The weeding has been kept to a minimum because of the thick layer of grass clippings I added around the tomatoes and peppers.

The cabbage is bouncing back. The critter(s) hasn’t been back, so I have only one that has been eaten to the stump. The rest seem to be doing well. My container cabbage is really thriving!

No cabbage worms to speak of for awhile now. I hope that is normal, and they are not just hiding deep inside the cabbage heart ready to pop out when I cut into it after harvest! eeek!

I only have one remaining brussels sprout plant in a container. It seems to be okay, but I’m not really an expert on what it’s supposed to look like at this stage. Let’s just say that the leaves are continuing to grow.

My carrots, well, I don’t think they are going to make it, the greens are stubby and not full and lush like you might think. But I am leaving them in the ground just in case the critter comes back. I’d rather him eat the rest of the carrot leaves and leave the other veggies alone.

I removed all the pea vines a week or so ago, and today, I pulled up what was left, along with the lettuce stubs. I hope to plant some more beets and some Chinese greens in mid-August for cooler harvesting. Yum.

What else?

OMG, the tomatoes are out of control. I’ve harvested a lot of cherry and sun golds. Still waiting for my big ones to turn red.

The ones in containers are doing okay, but they are mostly tall and skinny. Probably bolted?? The in-ground tomatoes are all over the place, branching out in all directions, definitely crowding my poor peppers.

The carmen peppers are goners I think, but I do have hope for my jalapenos.

Pickling cucumbers are awesome. I already made a batch of homemade refrigerator pickles. Oh they were YUMMY!

Eggplant is also excellent. We had some last night, sauteed with some green beans, scallions and cherry tomatoes. I don’t know that I’d plant eggplant again. Yes, it seems easy to grow, but after awhile, what do you do with all of it? haha. Even though the fruit is thin, long without much seeds, I’m realizing there isn’t a lot to do. I’m going to have to google some more recipes. I know I’ll probably be making some roasted veg pancakes using it.

Oh and speaking of beets (earlier), the ones I’ve planted are good. Cute and small. Love the beets!

I still have my two containers of butternut squash. There’s blossoms, but I don’t know if I see any female fruit blossoms. I think by now, there should have been some fruit, no? Oh well, next time I will plant in the ground or in a larger container.

On the other hand, the watermelon seems to be doing super well! DH is very pleased. Both the watermelon in the ground and in the large recycling bin have lots of fruits, getting larger and larger. It’s exciting. We can’t wait for harvest!

I think that is it for now. I still haven’t posted many photos. But I’m taking them regularly so I can see the progress, especially for next year. I’ve been so busy with my new job, that it’s been difficult to juggle everything I used to do now that I have less time. But I’ll eventually manage. DH has been a big help!

Gardening Diary: Tomatoes!

Yay!

The other day, I noticed a couple of my cherry tomatoes were on the verge of “redness” and this morning, I was able to pick some red cherry and sun gold tomatoes! 11 in all! (I picked 1 sun gold to taste to make sure they were ripe)

Unfortunately, there is a critter(s) that’s eating some of my leaves. The planted brussels sprouts plants are gone. I plucked one out of the ground a few days ago, and the other one is also now down to the nub as well. The cabbage right next to it is also being eaten, but I’m leaving that, hopefully it’ll keep eating that and leave the other cabbages alone. We’ll see.

My carrot tops are also being eaten. They were lush and tall the other day, and they’re a bit shorter when I looked this morning. The lettuce I was saving is pretty much gone too. Oh well.

I’ll be pulling the pea vines out of the ground maybe today or later in the week. They have given all they can give. I think it might have been a bit too warm for them this season, I didn’t yield as much as I hoped. I know I’ll plant earlier next season, and maybe that will help.

Hmm, what else? Eggplant is getting taller and bushier. Lots of blossoms, but no sign of any fruit yet. The butternut in the container by the garden is blossoming. I don’t think I see any “female” though, so I’ll keep an eye on that.

Our Sugar Baby watermelon, on the other hand is thriving! The plant in the ground has finally taken off, and there are a couple of little watermelon babies. The one in the recycling bin has a lot of fruit, some getting quite large! We moved the container to the middle part of the yard so it’ll get more sun. I’ll have to google if it’s okay to have so much fruit, or if some should be pruned to make it easier for the stronger ones to flourish. I did notice some blotchy holes on a couple of fruits.

And back to the tomatoes, wow! The ones in containers are a bit leggy, but still bearing fruit. But the ones planted are thriving beyond belief. Bushy branches taking off in every direction! I’m hoping that is a good thing! They seem very healthy! I keep having to re-stake!

Pickling cucumbers are doing very well. I’ve picked a bounty of cukes already, with hopefully more to come well into August!

My peppers, eh, I don’t have high expectations for most of them. There have been some blossoms on the jalepenoes, but unfortunately some are so close to the tomatoes, that they are getting shaded by the low flowing branches. I’ll have to rethink some staking. The bell peppers in containers have shown some blossoms, but I don’t know if they are able to go forward into fruit. I might skip peppers next season, and just stick to the farm stands and farmers market, where they are plentiful!

When I started my garden I had recently become unemployed, but thankfully, I did find a new job, but that means my time in the garden has been cut back considerably. I’m a little behind on weeding, but it still seems to be thriving. I’ve been adding grass clippings and that helps.

So, that is my update! I’ll add some photos later.

Gardening Diary: Another Harvest & Pest Update

It’s supposed to rain most of the today, so this AM I went out and gathered a bunch of fresh veggies from the garden. Yum

Cut a bunch of lettuce & basil, just a few tender beet greens, a few pea shoots (I’m growing shoots in a separate container), bunches of pea pods, a few sprigs of oregano, and two very small green Carmen peppers.

This is my fourth harvest. Here is a photo of my last (third) harvest of greens from my garden:

harvested lettuce, basil, beet greens, peas, and shoots

Gardening Notes:

So far, the only pepper plants with fruit are the Carmens and the plants are still so short/small, the fruit is larger and starting to drag. I figured I’d try cutting off two fruits to allow the plant to maybe catch up and grow some more! I had heard that it encourages the plant to grow more fruit if you pick the peppers while they are green, as opposed to waiting until they turn red. This will be an experiment!

Yesterday, I caved and bought a bottle of BT-Thuricide (Bacillus Thuringiensis), which is an organic solution for cabbage worms/larva.

tiny cabbage worm egg larva
close up of tiny cabbage worm egg larva

It was very easy picking off the tiny little yellow worm/eggs from the cabbage outer leaves, see my photos above. But then I noticed there were a bunch of worms snacking on inner leaves and it’s a lot more difficult to get them out!

The organic experts say BT is safe, but I still am reluctant to use it, mainly because it can cause resistance if overused. It’s especially disconcerting that they are “weaving” BT into Genetically-Modified (GMO) cabbage plants, which will eventually make BT useless for caterpillar/worm control!

UPDATE: 2012-06-27 I returned the BT. I decided that I would keep trying to pick off by hand.

Other than that, most of my plants are doing very well, in-ground and in-containers.

The only plants with issues are the bell peppers. I guess it might be more difficult to grow in the North. Most of them are looking “black” and losing their leaves. It could be from overwatering and not enough “heat.” I don’t know if I’ll attempt to plant bell peppers again next season.

Life is good!

Gardening Diary: Garden Expansion Photos

I wanted to share some of the photos I took of my little veggie garden. It started off smaller, then expanded, and expanded.

For now, I’m posting wide angles, but soon, I’ll share more detailed photos to show the growth of each plant.

Last season, we started with a very small patch of garden, as you can see from notes on two photos. Our first expansion was adding a few more feet next to the fence, and another row with a pathway.

Here’s what it looked like on 5/24 (with notations for last season).

We’ve got (1st row near fence) snap & shell peas, a large perennial oregano plant, beet seedlings, more peas, pickling cucumbers, then (2nd row), carrots, lettuce, brussells sprouts, red cabbage, and eggplant. In containers, there’s red cabbage, potatoes, (2) lettuce, and (2) brussels sprouts.

Oh and we also have grape vines in the fence corner, and another vine in the middle area of the fence.
the garden started
The containers were placed on top of long metal fence posts to allow good drainage.

garden diagram from last season

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Gardening Diary: Food!

Got another harvest of lettuce yesterday AM, along with a few pea tendrils, and sprigs of basil & parsley. We each feasted on a small side salad for dinner.

I can’t wait for my garden to take off, but in the meantime, Wilson Farm (a local large farm) is offering their own fresh produce, as well as a few other offerings from states closeby.

I scooped up some of their own sugar snap peas, radishes, lettuce along with strawberries from CT.

Life is good!

Garden Diary: My First Harvest

Harvested a few leaves of lettuce from my wonderful garden this morning, along with a stem of parsly and basil. Exciting!

I wasn’t sure if I was cutting it properly, using scissors, but I checked out this video from the Garden Fork and he suggests to cut the whole thing down to about an inch. I was just cutting a few outside leaves off. I’ll wait until they get a bit taller again and try his method. It reminds me of cutting grass!

http://youtu.be/qJ8XpQjBf3g

Still waiting for the lettuce I planted from seed to grow up. All this gardening stuff is still new to me, so this season will be an ongoing experiment!

I know I’ll be pinching some pea tendrils/shoots from the garden soon, maybe even this weekend!

Anyway, I made a lovely lettuce sandwich with Mindful Mayo and slices of my homemade whole grain chia bread. It was fantastic! :) Life is good!

my first lettuce harvest, sandwich

First CSA Share Vegetables Pickup

My first CSA share produce pickup! It was exciting! We got a whole mess of good good veggies.

Here’s what we got (click photo for larger version)

(clockwise from left)

Tatsoi (back left) – similar to bok choy
Romaine Lettuce – I have never seen such a huge head of lettuce. It was gorgeous
Green Leaf Lettuce
Radishes (far right) – I haven’t been a fan of radishes in the past, but these were mild and so delicious. I chopped them up and added them to our salad.
Zucchini
Kousa Squash (similar to zucchini)
Green Peas (mixture of snap peas, more) – I couldn’t stop munching on the snap peas while making dinner. I was addicted!
Garlic Scapes – this will be a cool new veggie for us
Beets – looking forward to the yummy beet greens. Beets are one of my all time fave veggie.

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