garden

Watering

I water as needed, but there has been much more rain this year.

One problem is when the grass is cut it gets all over the garden and now I have some grass growing in the garden.

2008 garden

In mid-April, I planted the following:

10 Tomato plants
6 Head Lettuce plants
6 Spinach plants
~20 Onion sets
~6 Garlic bulbs
2 spots of Yellow Squash seeds
1 spot of Butternut Squash seeds
~4 spots of Mixed Pepper seeds
~5 spots of Basil seeds
1 Oregano plant (in addition to the one that made it through winter)
1 Chive plant
1 Parsley plant
1 Rosemary plant
(one Thyme plant made it through winter)

drought

This summer in central has been marked by a drought. I've never really paid much attention to rainfall (before having a massive lawn and a burgeoning garden), but one glance at all the brown yards in the neighborhood can tell you about the drought. There are water restrictions in all the nearby counties until we get a few more inches of rain. Needless to say, the garden is suffering. I think I'm going to try to give it a breather until it cools down in September and then try to plant some more for the fall. In the mean time, I still have an open spot from where the squash died out and I may try to put a bunch of onions there and see if they'll grow in the heat.

first tomatoes

so i finally had a bunch of tomatoes turn red. in all, i picked around a dozen and a few cucumbers too. still no sign of the bushel beans, but the pepper plants and all the herbs have really grown well.

i used the tomatoes, a zucchini, and some fresh basil and oregano to make my first garden fresh pasta sauce (well, with a store bought onion and garlic) and it tasted great!

garden overhaul

A lot of the garden needs more water. It's not the frequency of the watering, but the amount - the water wasn't getting really really deep like it needs to be.

All the squash plants have been attacked and basically destroyed by squash vine borer bugs. They're gross. I haven't intentionally not used pesticides, but if I continue in that vein it looks like I can use this BT stuff to kill them.

The tomato plants are getting ready to produce, but my father-in-law is concerned that they may have blight. We'll see.

After making a big salad with the lettuce, there wasn't much left and it wasn't doing very good anyways so we pulled up what was left and re-planted with all the seed I had left.

We're going to give the green beans a chance. There are a lot of plants and they're getting ready to sprout.

I'll be watering this week with some Miracle-Gro plant food that you spray through an attachment to the hose.

fresh picks

In the past two weeks, I have picked around 4 each of yellow and green squash. Some huge, some over-ripened due to a large rain. I routinely pick a few leaves of basil, but recently I had to prune a lot of browning basil leaves out. This past weekend I picked my first cucumber and last night I picked a ton of mesclun lettuce leaves and made a salad.

Also of note, my first tomato is reddening.

Photo: As of Today

How's it looking?

Photos and update

See first photo here. I'll get the current photo this evening hopefully.

The garden is growing good. It needs a good watering and I really need to start thinning out some more of the plants lest the good plants not do as well.

updates

Ok, there's no need to keep recording every time I water the garden; just let it be recorded that I'm watering every 1-2 days. I'm also trying to till / turn the soil about once a week because it gets crusty on top otherwise.

the squash plants are getting huge and I've spotted the first few zuchini squash growing near the base of the plant. They're each about 2-3 inches long right now. My one bell pepper is around 2-3 inches long as well. The basil plants finally took off and my two tomato plants closer to the basil are doing growing great as well. The third tomato plant is struggling, but I gave it some TLC on Monday night by digging out the dirt around it by hand and trying to re-set it a bit.

A few days ago I pulled 4 cucumber plants that were crowding others and not doing as well. The lettuce is starting to grow, but little bugs are feasting on it. The bush bean plants look great, but the bugs kind of like those leaves as well. The other herb plants almost look like they haven't grown a bit, but they're not dying either. The onions have all broken thru the surface with their thin green stems, but I felt the bulbs under the surface and they're not really any bigger than when I planted them. I also finally spotted the garlic that my father-in-law planted in the beds out front - they're doing about the same as the onions.

Oh and I've finally almost got pictures. Hopefully before the weekend and I'll go ahead and post current pictures as well.

watering and sprouting

Watered a few times during a busy week. Watered around 10pm Friday night, gone for the weekend, then watered on Monday evening.

The zuchini squash plants and leaves are getting huge, the bean leaves are getting bigger, the bell peppers produced their first growing pepper, and the mixed lettuce is finally starting to grow. The basil looks a tad yellow, but I noticed is actually branching and flowering now. The tomato plants have doubled or tripled in size since their original planting, but there are no actual tomatoes growing yet.

watering log

watered a few times last week and it rained at least wednesday and thursday. watered last night while planting onions.

onions

planted around 20 onion sets around the outside edges of the garden.

daily watering

I've watered the garden every evening this week.

This evening, I saw the first tiny leaves all over the place. The lettuce (officially: mesclun) and the cucumbers specifically. Some of the bush beans wiggled to the surface so I re-covered them. They are "hatching" or germinating or something.

Sunset watering

Pounded three tomato stakes in to stabilize the tomato cages and one stake at each end of the open tomato cage serving as the cucumber fence / trellis. Tied the cages to the stakes with the organic twine.

Watered the garden at sunset.

Forgot a few items

Ran back by Lowe's and purchased:
5 tomato stakes
Organic twine

Still need to get 1 lb. of "onion sets" from the grocery.

building the garden

With mucho help from my Father-in-law:
Bolted the two short pieces of lumber to the two long pieces of lumber to create the 5' x 10' garden box.
Sprayed round-up all underneath where the garden's footprint.
Laid the fine mesh down under the garden box to prevent weeds from coming up, but to allow water to drain.
Poured the 10 bags of potting soil into the garden box to form a raised bed and spread soil evenly.
Placed all veggies and herbs and arranged tomato cages and cucumber fence / trellis (an opened triangular tomato cage).
Watered heavily - even more on the tomatoes.

the big day

My in-laws in town and today was the big day to build the garden. My Father-in-law and I went to Lowe's and a few area garden centers and bought all the supplies to build the garden.

Materials:
3 pieces of lumber - 2" x 10" x 10' - 3rd piece cut in half
8 bolts
1 roll of weed preventing mesh for underneath - 3' x 50'
10 bags of potting soil - 3 cu. ft. each
4 triangle tomato cages

Plants:
ready to plant herbs: 2 parsley, 2 basil, 1 oregano, 1 thyme, 1 rosemary
ready to plant veggies: 6 (3 used) zuchini squash, 2 green bell peppers, 3 tomatoes
seeds: cucumber, yellow squash, mixed greens lettuce, (green) bushel beans

Tools:
hand trowel/scoop thing
3 prong hand rake/hoe thing
long 4 prong garden rake
(was given) spade
3' wand nozzle for watering

Photo: Initial Setup

I hope you can get an idea of the garden. There are either seeds or small plants over the whole 50 sq. ft. (5' x 10').

last frost

We're in the midst of a chilly last frost and I've yet to do anything substantive for the garden. My Father-in-law is going to help me scope out the best location for the garden and I still plan on doing something this year in prep for a better garden next year.

frost and a word of advice

I got these frost dates from here:
Lexington, KY
190 days in the growing season
Last frost: Apr. 17
First frost: Oct. 25

Excellent word of advice from my father-in-law and from skimming the garden books: "Start slow."

I've decided to plant a vegetable and herb garden

Now I just have to plan it! I've already gotten three used vegetable and herb gardening books and I skim reviewed them all this Friday night. Before the end of the year, I'd like to start firming up a list of things I'd like to plant. If I have the time while it's still unseasonably warm, I'd also like to go ahead and get a good spade and shovel and start turning over the garden area in the backyard so that I can see what kind of rocks I'm dealing with.