I bet you think that I am done with this blog and the garden. Quite the opposite now that I have completed this past semester and am down to one more. I have been busy, working in the garden, just not busy making posts. How about a catch up slide show?!? As the individual plants grow, I will put more on about them. The photo above is of my Winter Squash vines, perhaps the most exciting thing I am growing this year. There is something appealing about the idea of growing these fruits all summer, and having them all winter to nibble on. On to the rest:
Carrot greens and some overly crowded turnips. These are some more of those grow and store veggies that I am digging growing now. Unfortunately my garden isn't really geared to grow these kids en mass, but it is a good testing ground for the big move in the future. I learn things, like, over crowed turnips grow all over each other, and their greens are about three times as large as I thought they would be. Not a disappointment, just a surprise.
The boxes are still pretty nice looking despite the piles of rocks. I'm working on it.
The tomatoes are looking especially promising so far. They all have blooms and are large, lush and deep green. This year I am growing half as many plants as last year, but a few things are different. For example, I am not over crowding them, they each have a 2x2 square or more to live in a grow. That is a little closer really than I would like, but double the space I had them in last year. I am companion planting shallots in the beds along with them as well, in hopes that once they get large and pungent they might ward off a bug or two. Also, I have cages! Thanks to a horse farmer who had a little extra wire laying around, I have the plants fully supported. All I need to do is put some posts up for the cages. A quick trip to the hardware store and about 30 minutes is all I will need for that. The best thing about these cages is I can use them forever, over and over again.
There are plenty of flaws remaining. The onions are still small, but growing. The dwarf bok choy bolts after about a week of life after the first true leaves set, making it a rather quick spoiler, my rock path is about 25% laid, making it the destroyer of ankles, and there are some bugs... worms, beetles, aphids, etc. Still, if the weather holds and summer is normal, all should be well. Just look at those potato vines! I don't know what I am going to do with them, talk about over crowding. It just goes to show you what good dirt will do. Last year my taters were about half as tall when they wilted. I will grow them in rows next year.
