My blogging has been severely lacking lately, but I'm going to try to do better. That said, I'll catch up on what little gardening I've done thus far this year. Last year I focused mainly on my attempts at growing vegetables, but this year I will include flowers as well. In my quest to acquire a green thumb, I think those count as well!
In March, I cleaned out the little flower bed by our front door and planted some pansies in front of the irises that have been multiplying and crowding each other out for the past several years. I know they should be divided, but it's something to continues to slip my mind when it's the right time to do it. Hopefully I will manage to do that this year! Anyway, my happy little pansies are all planted in the bed and have been mulched around. A month later, they are doing quite well!
Much to my surprise, the aforementioned irises also did quite well this spring. As crowded as they are, they still produced several blooms, more than I think I've ever seen them produce. They were beautiful, although they did have a hard time staying upright. I'm not sure if this is due to the rhizomes all being piled practically on top of each other or maybe because they aren't planted deep enough. My aunt says it's because of all the rain we've gotten. Any other thoughts?
Around the middle of April, I planted our small raised bed with some herbs and vegetables I bought as plants in peat pots. Last year I tried out straw bale gardening, and had some success, but I didn't prep early enough this year so decided instead to just plant our raised bed where the straw bales were.
Except for one bale in the middle, they had all broken down, and so I spread out the resulting compost into the bed and mixed in a couple of bags of Miracle Grow Garden Soil as well as some compost created from a tree that was cut down and mulched a couple of years ago. In that mix, I planted two tomato plants (1 Roma & 1 Brandywine), 3 peppers (2 jalapenos & 1 hot banana), basil, a tomatillo, a burpless bush cucumber, and some "volunteer" dill that came up in a container I had planted last year. A few days later we had a lot of rain (the same front that caused the flooding in Nashville), which killed my Roma & tomatillo. I plan to replace them soon.
Yesterday, I got out and weeded around my pansies and then planted some hostas I bought a couple of weeks ago. I also set out some pink dianthus at the other end of my flower bed, some creeping jenny around an oak tree in our front yard, and some marigolds in amongst my vegetables since I heard that they deter insects. Some of the plants had sat too long in their temporary containers, but I'm hoping they pull through. I also sowed some zinnia & marigold seeds in a bed in the back yard. We shall see what happens!
I've never grown garlic before. I remember my mother keeping it when I was growing up, primarily for her homemade pickles. Unfortunately, I never had much of an interest in growing things or cooking while I lived at home, though, so I didn't get any tips there. I suppose I should've done some research, but I decided instead to just jump right in and plant it. It was in one large clump when we got it, so I'm sure I couldn't have put it too close together. I spaced it out 5-6" apart and planted the bulbs with 1-2" of soil over the top. Maybe that was deep enough. We shall see!
Something else I planted yesterday was a Grape Tami G Hybrid Tomato that we picked up at Wal-Mart while we were replacing our rosemary. I had run out of room in our raised bed, so I repurposed one of our many Tidy Cats buckets for the job. I put a few holes in the bottom of it to allow for drainage, so hopefully that will do OK. We haven't had much success with tomatoes in containers so far, but it was the best I could do without digging a hole in the yard.
The thyme from last year that turned green again this spring is still doing well! It's not as full as I'd like, but I'm hoping it will continue to fill out. I trimmed off some of the more sparse branches in the hopes of helping the others do better. Actually, I accidentally trimmed off one of the branches full of leaves in the process. I stuck it in a glass of water in the kitchen window, though, and it rooted. So I'll be planting that this evening, along with a "volunteer" tomato of some sort that has popped up in the raised bed next to one of our pepper plants.
Our garden is doing pretty well, with the exception of something which is eating our tomato plants. We picked up some Sevin Dust Sunday and will be using that ASAP. (It rained yesterday.) Hopefully that will take care of the culprits!
Our garden is coming right along, even the broken pepper plant that I spoke of in my previous post. It seems to have bounced right back and is flourishing now. These pictures were made June 19, and since then everything is even bigger. We now have some tiny little Roma tomatoes on most of our four plants, and there are several decent-sized Celebrity Hybrids. We've already picked and used lots of basil & thyme, and last night we ate the first of our jalapenos with tacos. It's exciting to actually get to eat what you've worked hard at growing!
Most of our herbs are doing great! We've already used the basil & thyme a few times, and they are both just growing like crazy. Here's a pic taken on June 1st.
Considering I've pretty much neglected our garden, I'd say most of the plants in it have done great! Our sweet basil plant is huge and has yielded tons of fresh basil. We've made tomato pies, frozen some, and given some away. I need to try my hand at pesto; we certainly have enough to make some. Any other fresh basil recipes I need to try?
Our tomatoes have really taken off! Friday night I made one of my favorite summer recipes with some Brandywines from our straw bale garden. I was able to get enough basil from my little container to use too.
Slice tomatoes and drain on paper towels.
Since I added the extra fertilizer and have been also using my Miracle Grow spray almost every day, my little straw bale garden has finally picked up the pace. I even picked my first squash last night. Hooray!
I'm not sure what's up with my zuchinni...it has grown really big, and it flowers, but then the blooms just fall off. No zukes. What's up with that? Maybe that will change soon too.
My tomato plants have taken off. There are little grape tomatoes that are starting to change color, and the Brandywine is bloomed. My jubilee was very stunted; I thought it would die. It's still shorter than the other two plants, but it has really perked up lately. Hopefully that will bloom soon as well!
Also perking up are my Anaheim chiles. They've really grown, and now the one on the far left is about to bloom. Yay! Hopefully I can keep this up and keep everything that's left alive and producing. :)
Well, I've let my blogging get behind, but honestly I haven't had much to say. My plants have still been pretty sad-looking. Some of them have yellowed leaves while others have leaves that have been munched on by bugs.
It's rained a lot here, and so I haven't had many opportunities to go out and do much of anything to help them lately. I did buy some fish fertilizer over the weekend, though, and finally got the chance to go out and use it yesterday. Unfortunately, when I went out I also found that the ants have come back in full force. They were literally swarming over the mounds of soil where I planted my cucumber seeds. After fertilizing the entire garden, I liberally sprinkled them with Borax. Hopefully they'll be gone this evening and my plants perked up.
One happy surprise I found yesterday was a small yellow squash. It's about 3" long. At least something is growing!
