Tales From My Veggie Garden 2009 II

Last weekend I managed to get quite a bit in the ground, but not everything. Some veggies are doing well, others OK and some not doing well at all. Over all I am happy with the beginning results and still have time to replant some of the veggies that did not make it.

As of a few days ago, I counted over 80 corn stalks! How exciting is that! I noticed last night that it looks like there are a few more that are coming up. There are still a few empty spots in between stalks that I am going to be filling in this afternoon. I am hoping to get enough corn to freeze enough to have for the entire winter – and of course corn on the grill all summer long!

The brussels sprouts are doing really well. I have never tried growing them before and heard they were hard to grow. I am happy that they are thriving and getting big.

The red and yellow peppers are also doing well. I have not noticed any drooping or wilting at all with them and they seem to be growing quickly now that they are in the ground. I think that along with the corn, the peppers are the happiest.

The cukes have croaked. Every last one of them. There were a few that were not doing so well yesterday, but there were a good number of them that were happy and doing well. So sad that today, they are all gone. I will be planning more of them this afternoon or this evening.

Another sad loss is that all of the Sunflowers seedlings that I planted have died. They died the quickest out off all of my plants. I am not sure really what happened, they started out strong and then they were just all dead. I planted (I think) close to a dozen seeds directly in the ground when I planted the seedlings, so I am hoping that they pop up sometime soon. I planted some in between the seedlings and others in between some other flowers. I have only one flower garden left this year and I was hoping to make up for it with the Sunflowers. I am also hoping that it is not too late to go out and get some more seeds to try again.

The pole beans are doing great. I think the rabbit has either met a timely end, or has moved on to another garden. Either way, the beans look great and are getting big. I think they are getting ready to take off and get big. It looks like the seeds I planted last week are starting to grow, as I see little bumps of loose soil along the row of beans. I love how quickly they grow!

The sweet peas are doing pretty good in their little hanging basket. I still don’t have it hanging on a hook yet, they are still sitting on the stoop, but they seem to be happy, and it looks like a squash or zucchini plant is coming up in the basket too. Bonus. They have not done much vining since I have transplanted them into the basket, but the leaves are getting much bigger and over all the bunch is filling in and getting thicker.

The squash and zucchini are doing well for the most part. They get droopy rather quickly in the heat and require the most water of all the plants so far. Once they get established though, they are usually my hardiest plants and produce the most amount of food.

I have still yet to get the basil and dill seedlings in the ground, along with the eggplants, cantaloupe, honeydew and watermelon. Most of the beet seedlings did not make it through the weekend, I think that I am just going to try to plant the seeds directly into the tubs I have ready for them and forget about trying to start them in the little pods.

I have a large tub that is ready for carrot seeds. I am going to plant the seeds fairly close together and then thin them out as they start to crowd each other. That way I will be able to harvest carrots for several months.

I completely forgot to restart to tomatoes this weekend, so I will be starting some more in both the ground and indoors in little pods. I want to cover all bases on this one…we eat the tomatoes right off the vine while playing outside with the kids and doing yard work and gardening. Tomatoes are one of our most important veggies and I can’t believe I forgot them!

The other day I noticed that all of my black raspberry bush has little green berries on it. Even the little transplanted bundles that I found around the yard this year. That bush is getting huge quickly this year. This is the first year that I managed to prune back the entire bush to about two feet tall. I cut back everything and pulled out all of the dead branches. It looks like we are going to have enough berries to preserve this year, even if it is just a few pints. It will be fun to try something new. I may have to get a couple of yards of tule to drape over the bush so the birds don’t the berries. I usually harvest the berries first thing in the morning, before the birds get to them, but this year the bush is so big, I think I may have a hard time keeping the birds away as new berries ripen during the day. I think tule is the cheapest thing to buy and is pretty much the same thing as the expensive netting that you would find at the garden center.

So my veggie garden has started out with some huge successes and a few complete failures. I am glad though, that it is still early enough in the season to plant some more seeds and try again, and again if I need to. I still have plenty of seeds of pretty much everything. There are only a few things that I ran out of that I need to try to get more seeds for.