Grow Garden, Grow !

After getting a late start to the garden...some of the plants are finally starting to produce some fruits.  It has been a rough season, weather-wise.  Some days of scorching temps and insane humidity...and sometimes incessant heavy rain with no sun for days !  But we are still really enjoying it!

My two little gardeners helping me set up the gardening boxes!

 Our boxes are ready for planting!  The children said some prayers for our garden !

And the plants, seeds and bulbs are planted!

carrots, garlic, purple beans

kiwi, muscadine grapes, raspberries, blackberries

Our tomato plants suffered from leafminers early on and I thought they were doomed.  I did some research and ordered some Spinosad.  They have been sprayed a few times now and I think we have gotten rid of those little buggers.  The plants themselves are growing pretty tall, but only the grape tomatoes are producing.  I was REALLY excited about the Big Mama Paste tomatoes that we planted...but so far, no fruit.  The plants were young when they had the leafminers and I have read that it could affect the production or produce smaller fruits.  The plants all seem strong now and are flowering, so I am hoping they are catching up !

Leafminers !  

tomato plants and peppers

The purple green beans are Sophia's favorite right now...she loves to pick them right off the trellis and eat them.  She is patiently waiting for the carrots, garlic and sweet potatoes to be ready for picking.  This is our first time for the garlic and carrots.  The tops of the garlic seem to be burning a bit and I wondering if it is just too hot for them.  We chose a "heat resistant" variety but maybe it's just been too much.  I am going to try to plant them again in the Fall as well in order to see which crop does better.

The peppers are my personal favorite.  I have to plant more of those next year.  The Pinot Noir Bell peppers were the first to produce (forgot to take pics) and they were delicious.  Pretty, too!  I used them mostly in my salads because I really wanted to enjoy how fresh and flavorful they were ! Our Orange bells are getting to be a good size...just waiting for them to turn orange now !  The rest are green bells and haven't fruited yet.

Here is our first batch of Fairytale Eggplant !  This is our first time planting this variety.  Last year we did the regular eggplants, which did well.  Those are some prolific plants !  They grew pretty large and were beautiful.  They ended up shading the other plants around them, which I hadn't planned for.  This year we decided to try this one.  It is actually a very compact plant and could even be grown in containers. I had no idea what to expect, so we started with just one plant to see how it did in our garden.  So far, it is doing well and is very healthy.  They flower (and fruit) in clusters..and the eggplants are shaped more like small zucchinis.  I am planning to cook them tonight so we will see how they taste. They are supposed to be very mild.

Sweet Potatoes !!!

Our gardening experience continues to grow !  We finally got to pull our sweet potatoes out of the ground. Sophia was thrilled when her Baba took her out to do the dirty work !  We actually got quite a few, but not nearly the amount I thought we would.  We looked into it a little and realized where we made our mistakes.  Our biggest problem was that we didn't give them enough room to grow.  These vines can spread....like crazy !  So whenever we saw a little tendril making it's way out of my neatly-outlined area, we would just lift it and put it back with the bunch.  Actually, as they spread out and grow they continue to root themselves along the way producing more and more potatoes !  At least that's our new understanding.  The ones we did pull were delicious.  A few of them were too tiny to use, we really could have left them underground much longer but we haphazardly YANKED al of the vines above-ground assuming they were all "done" !
We are still getting quite a few peppers of all colors !  Our eggplant was very productive too !  Our biggest failure were the tomatoes - which obviously did not get enough hours of sun every day.

At least we are better prepared for next year !

Up, Up and Away !

I am learning lots of new lessons in my small gardening adventure.  If you recall, I built a trellis for my plants that need some vertical support.  I couldn't wait to see them all start climbing !  When I compare the pictures from the above-linked post, I am shocked !  As you can see, they are really filling out !  I think all the rain we had last week helped a lot.  

In the back of my box, I decided to try a little experiment and plant some sweet potatoes.  I actually purchased these 6 little ones and  thought that I would be putting it in my Square Foot Garden box.  It was an impulse item.  We love sweet potatoes and when I saw it at the store, I couldn't resist.  Poor planning.  When I got home and read a little bit about growing them, I realized they wouldn't work in my box. They CAN be planted in a SFG, but would take up a few boxes at least...and I had decided to start with one box and had limited space to use.  I didn't want to waste them but I didn't really have any great spot for them.  The ground on the side of the house here is pretty sandy and the articles I read stated that they would do well in hot, sandy areas.  My dad gave me the idea to put them behind the box and see how it works !  They are really growing great.  I should have spread them out more but I wanted to keep them looking somewhat neat.  The other problem is that the south side of trellis is shading that half of the sweet potatoes.  I am not really certain that is a problem, but I am noting it as a potential issue.  

Speaking of potential issues regarding shading.  You will notice the large leaves on my cucumber plant ! They are growing like monsters.  I had NO IDEA how these grew !  I am really new to all of this.  Add to this ignorance the fact that we didn't have to go out to water for a few days in row...and this means that I didn't head out to the garden on those days when we had such yucky weather.  It didn't take long and the cucumber vines are taking over everything !  I think that if I was out there during those first climbing days, I could have trained them up a little straighter - and not over to the sides.  It's amazing how they send out those little thin "viney" things that grab the trellis and start spreading out !  You can see the my tomatoes are on the two boxes to the left of the cucumbers in the pictures and are REALLY being shaded and overshadowed by these huge leaves.  I don't think they are getting enough sun at this point.  Sophia's pole beans are also getting really crowded - they are on the right side of the cucumber plants.  A few of those vines have found a spot on the netting, some are climbing up the cucumber vines too !   I don't think there is much I can do at this point, but we will chalk it up to lesson learned.  We are enjoying the whole experience !  

Start climbing....

As I have mentioned...I am trying my hand at gardening this year.  Starting small, but starting nonetheless.  Learning to grow my own food is quite challenging.  The idea of being able to feed my family homegrown veggies, without pesticides, is very motivating.   Watching Sophia's face as she runs out to the garden each day...checking her bean plants...is priceless.  There are lessons in all of this for each one of us in our home. Even the little man is learning (he is learning that Mama doesn't appreciate when he pulls at the plants or "adds" things to the garden box).   Sophia still prays for God to "bless my beans and flowers so that they can grow and feed my family".  She is learning to rely on Him and finding out that we should not try to blindly go about life on our own.  She has succeeded in figuring out how to water things without DROWNING them (we had to buy a new watering bucket with a slower spout to aid in this lesson) and is already talking about planting more seeds for "more flowers".  She knows which plants are the tomatoes, which are the beans, and so on.  It's been a fun lesson in life - and even if I never grow an edible vegetable, this will all have been worth it !  

BUT with all that being said - we are planning on success !  Tonight we built our trellis. We are hoping to see things climbing upwards in no time !   We used the directions/idea from the Square Foot Gardening plan and it went pretty smooth !  The size of the trellis actually covered 2 more square feet than I had anticipated, so there might be some rearranging going on so that I can add another vertically climbing plant.  

Hopefully, the next time I post pictures of this little area there will be lots of green climbing up the netting !  

Seedlings and Sprouts !

As I began to make some gardening plans for the summer (which I now realize should have been done in the SPRING)...I thought it might be fun for Sophia to have a little gardening project of her own.  I have been trying to remember to take pictures of her progress, which has been going well.  She has really had SO much fun with this, I would recommend it for kids her age.  I wasn't sure if she would be old enough to grasp the concept, but it's been great !

We started with some pole beans, which sprout quite quickly for some quick gratification for an inpatient toddler!  We also planted some zinnia flower seeds and carrots too.  We used Jiffy seed starter and egg cartons.  I actually purchased the whole Jiffy greenhouse kit...but thought the egg crate would suffice for our first try at gardening !

The biggest problem was getting her to understand "water them gently" !!!  we had a few mudslides and do-overs, but other than that it went pretty smooth !  

She checked their progress every morning and watered them with me everyday, during her prayers she makes sure every single day that we ask the Lord to "bless our plants and flowers"... .... and then....we finally saw a SPROUT from the green beans !  Can you see it???  

Before you knew it, they started to look like THIS ! 

We haven't prepared our final area for the garden, so in the interim, we have had to plant the beans in some pots.... and here they are in all their glory ! 

Stop and smell the......Roses???

Do you see that STICK on the right of the picture?  You can look at the rest of the flower bed too if you like, but pay attention to that STICK.  I will tell you that my husband took this DEAD, FROSTBITTEN, NO-SIGN-OF-LIFE, stick and brought it to my FRONT yard in hopes of bringing it back to life.

  I kept asking WHY we couldn’t try this experiment in the BACK yard?  Why in the front where everyone could see it?  We had just planted some new and promising little flowers in the bed, a trellis...there was so much hope for such beauty in a few short months.  .......  but my husbands delusional idea that the naked STICK was going to actually survive was really putting a big dose of "ugly" in that flowerbed. 

One day when I went out too look around, I noticed there were some green leaves coming on the branches.  Few days later, I thought “is that a BUD”????  Then more buds.  We went away for the weekend and when we came home THIS is what we saw.

I grabbed the camera right away!  I wish I had taken a better picture, but you get the idea. There were about 25 roses !  They were beautiful and looked like silk!  He has yet to say “I told you so”....but I”m sure he is holding himself back! My husbands steadfastness paid off!  Glory be to God for all things! I am very happy to have a beautiful healthy rose bush on the side of my house!!!