#garden diary

[chidatokiko]

garden diary

[funwalker]

Garden update!!!

I don't remember if I posted about my insane radish here or not, but this thing did absolutely nothing for 8 months until it decided to GET HUGE back in January and I've just been sitting back, letting it do its thing because I want seeds.

How it started:

How it's going:

This monster is nearly 5 feet tall.

I was about fed up with it though, because I really wanted to plant the plot it's in, but when I went out to clean it up, I remembered that they put off little seedpods similar to peas and that they're actually really tasty. So it's allowed to stay. For now. =_=

Also pulled up the rest of the carrots from last year.

I planted them too close together, so I'm sure some of these are chimera carrots, but also I did leave them in the ground too long. Lol

They're Danvers, so they're supposed to only grow maybe 4 inches long and 1 inch in diameter. I was also supposed to harvest them like 6 months ago. But tbh, Texas winters are so mild, I just let most of our root crops overwinter in the ground.

It's fine. It's fine.

They're fine.

I really do like the flavor of these carrots though. They're really tasty. A bit less sweet and a bit more earthy than supermarket carrots, and I think the light orange color of their flesh is very pretty. :)

Edit: oop I forgot to post these glubbies I found in the yard. I think they're an invasive species. So far haven't seen them actually in the garden, but I do find one or two of them around maybe once or twice a year.

It's hard to tell, but there were three of them. I'm pretty sure they were sitting on a pile of eggs, but sorry, glubbies... Over the fence you go.

[daughterofthelotusflower]

nothing as romantic as your man carrying your new plant home 🥰

.

[terramandm]

my garden so far. did a bit of weeding this morning. i've got fennel, leeks, kohlrabi, salad, potatoes, sage, thyme, rosmary, oregano, strawberries, calendula, nasturtium, dahlias and gladiolas planted out so far.

i'm waiting (im) patiently for my beans to germinate and break through the soil.🌱

the red currants and strawberries are about to pop❤️❤️

the zuchini and hokkaido pumpkin plants in the sun. some i had sown, some bought, simce i thought the one i'd sown had rotted and then they broke through the soil the day after i bought some😂😂 swiss chard in the back

hope you are all having a nice whitsun weekend🌼🍃🌲🌷

[neige-leblanche]

planted corn!!

i havent gardened since i was a child so i'm very excited to see how this goes. i was disappointed to find out how bad the soil had become since then (some gravel had been put down and then reclaimed so i don't know how low the roots will be able to comfortably grow :'( it was worst in the front though so i'm gonna choose to have faith in the back two quarters ✊😔)

i assumed i wouldn't have enough garden soil to make the mounds so i actually ended up reusing some of the sod i had cleared to make the plot; i have heard of green manure and hope that this will have a similar effect without giving me a crazy amount of weeding work! i was actually more confident trying this than i normally would be because it's going to rain this evening; it actually began to rain just as i was burying the corn!!

my main worry right now is that the mounds stay intact through the rain; i also read online that june is too late to start corn though the seed packet said it was the right time for the area i live :0 i also bought some sunflower seeds that i realized too late actually take even longer to grow, so i think i might go and put a few in tomorrow; i was considering planting them in the corners between the plots (again. terrible soil so i don't have high hopes T_T)

i bought some natural animal repellent that i plan to use after the corn sprouts, and i think i might buy some more garden soil & my own watering can too, especially if i go through with planting the sunflowers!

[ryanscabinlife]

I can't believe it's been a month since I posted the May garden update. A lot of things has happened. Loads of wins and also plenty of failures. I guess I'll start with the progress of the ones I featured last month.

The hardneck garlic that overwintered are just about ready to be harvested. According to online sources, garlics can be harvested about a month after the scapes emerges. I was delighted to see the scapes as I was taking pics this morning. Can't wait to collect and make something out of them.

Oh tomatoes. I talked about how our weather has been awful many of times on this blog. After the dry May, they started showing some damaged on their leaves, and since they barely saw the sun this month, they did not grow very much. I panicked so I bought 30 more roma seedlings and 6 more cherry tomatoes. After a few days of sun, all of them are bouncing back to life and looking very healthy. Now I'm stuck with 60 romas and 12 cherries. Not the worst problem to have, really. All corners of the garden have tomatoes planted in them.

The beds where the trellis is sitting is now filled with plants. All of the beans and peas are looking great. The snow peas are about 4 ft tall and there's plenty of beans on the ground. The luffa that I was so excited about, none of them showed up. I bought a packet of 10 seeds for a whopping $4.99 and only 1 germinated. I'm currently babying it and waiting for the perfect time to transplant it. The cucumber is the other one I'm totally having hard time with. So far I've already used up the whole packet, and so far I have seen none. I planted the last 6 seeds yesterday but I'm not holding my breath. We have a neighbour (I'm using the word neighbour very loosely here, they're about 5km from us) who have a small road-side stand and in the summer they sell cucumbers. I think I'm just gonna have to rely on them for cucumbers.

The potatoes (all 30ft row) are doing extremely well. Some of them suffered from light frost and their early leaves died but they all bounced back. I think next year, I'll plant them even earlier.

It looks like the apple or crabapple (I still don't know) tree had a couple of successful pollinations. I think the reason for the lack of blooms is because the tree has been neglected and unkept for a long time. I've already been researching and watching a ton of videos on how to properly prune apple trees so I can prune it next spring in hopes that it will put out more blooms next year.

The border is looking a bit sad. Something to be expected on the first year due to the fact that most of the plants I have in it are perennials. I think they'll live though, I can only hope that they come out stronger next year. Looking closely, the wildflowers that I broadcasted are out. I see hundreds of them. I've added two smaller beds, I'm hoping to fill them up with the annual seedlings I'm currently growing. No progress at all on the potted garden in the background.

The brassicas are my favourites but also the main cause of my headaches. Thank god I have seeded a good amount of extras because these bitches have plethora of enemies! The first to attack was slugs. They destroyed a handful of seedlings (100% my fault coz I decided to plant them too young). I battled this with non-stop weeding and slug hunting. So far it's been working, I just go in early in the morning, remove all of the slugs and the weeds they hide into. Then the rabbits. I did not plan to build a fence this year but after the rabbit attack that ate almost half of the original plants, I decided to build a fence around the garden. Again, so far it's working. Then just when they start actually growing, the damn flea beetles happened. Yesterday, I ordered some food grade diatomaceous earth. I'm aware that it will kill all of the insects it will come across with whether they're good or bad but I guess I'll just have to be careful not to put it on any of the flowering crops so it doesn't kill the pollinators. Next year, to avoid using such measure, I plan to install netting on all of the leafy veggies. I don't wanna do that now because it will just trap in the ones I already have in.

Speaking of flea beetles and brassicas, these godforsaken creatures killed all of the arugulas and boy choy I planted at the end of April. I then replanted them a couple of weeks ago and lo and behold, all of them are damaged again. I'm leaving them on the bed for now to hopefully serve as food for the pests and in hopes that I'll be able to trap and kill them once the diatomaceous earth arrives. I'll try to grow them again in the fall when the temperature starts going down with netting. But for now, I planted some of my extra tomatoes to keep this spot occupied.

To my surprise, the asparagus are doing exceedingly well. Can't wait for 2025 when I can finally harvest some.

I have 3 tomatillos that survived and they're doing well. They're planted with the original cherry tomatoes and celery.

3 weeks ago, I though these celery plants were dead, but they managed to come back.

Peanut, another big failure. I planted a whole row of peanuts parallel to the row of potatoes. 30 ft of it and roughly 40 seeds, 3 germinated, 2 out of those 3 got devoured by slugs. So now I have ONE peanut plant. I scattered few sage and pepper seeds in the area as replacement. Let's see what happens.

After the small radish harvest yesterday, these is what's left. I'm gonna give them a week or so until I pull them all out. In preparation for their departure, I have okras and eggplants growing in between rows. I've already replanted the okra and eggplants a couple of times because slugs and birds keep on eating them. To avoid that, I just covered them with recycled plastic cups as protection for now.

On the same bed as the radish, okra, and eggplants are the softneck garlic. It's more or less an experiment. I was just curious if they actually produce garlic bulbs at the end of growing season. The garlic cloves I used are from Costco. They're not looking too bad.

Next bed over (where I have the failed arugula and bokchoy) are onions. I bought a pack of a hundred bulbs and shoved all of them in this bed. They just started emerging.

Next bed after that (my biggest one) are corn, zucchini, and butternut squash. The corns are doing alright. I dealt with poor germination with both of the squashes and when they show up, birds eats them. Nothing much I could do other than keep replanting seeds and protecting the seedlings with plastic cups. Looks like the ones I have at the moment are gonna make it.

Next bed after that are carrots. I planted these back in April, and this is what they look like now. They sure to take their sweet time to germinate.

25-Jun-2023

[nuytsia]

12/04/2019

Sturts Desert Pea

[sonic-oscillator]

i also wanted to share my cute little planters all decorated! all the wood is from pallets and scrap, and they can each hold a max of six 5-gallon buckets. they've got some quirks in the construction but im very proud of them overall.