It's been some time since I updated this blog, so I think it's about time for me to do so.

Well, the corn did not come from outer space as I thought, it is a fungus called smut. I learned this thanks to the wonderful people at the University of Maryland. They are really great about helping you out with gardening questions. It did not seem to infect the other ears of corn, but I think that's because the worms ate the fungus before it could develop. I certainly hope we don't plant corn again next year. You can buy it so cheaply, it isn't worth the effort.

Mary took our first watermelon, but, like the cantaloupes, she said it was tasteless. She said the second one was mine. I think I'll wait until next week when my brother, Kenny, comes up to pick it. That is if the midnight raiders don't beat me to it.

The peppers finally seem to be growing and the walls of the peppers we've gotten from them are thicker. There appear to be a lot of peppers on the plants, so I'm happy about that.

The zucchini and squash are slowing down and the cantaloupe is done. The eggplants are really spreading out and both the Japanese eggplants and the plain old American eggplants are producing really nice fruit. The tomatoes appear to have slowed down but are still plentiful.

Both Mary and I have enjoyed this garden and look forward to next year's garden when we have a little bit of knowledge under our belts.

I'll update this blog if anything exciting happens, like we get more alien vegetables or a hurricane comes and wipes out the whole field. So check back from time to time. We have to be out of the garden by October 25 so I'll post the closing blog sometime in October.

Killer Korn from Outer Space

Don't know what happened to this ear of corn. It almost appears to be stuffed with Styrofoam when you look at it. But the kernels are firm and black inside. I don't know if it has a fungus that I heard about on TV or if something else is going on here. I sent the above pictures to the U of MD Agricultural School to see what they say about it. Our other ears of corn are immature but do not show signs of having the same problem. I don't know where this alien corn came from and I hope we don't have more of it. Since this is Silver Queen corn, maybe this is the Mean Queen corn from Sleeping Beauty.

Well, I thought I would never say this, but-----We have an overabundance of tomatoes!!!!! I picked about 21 tomatoes today and I had about 10 on my window sill before I got these. I haven't noticed anything missing since I put up the Alarm Pro sign. I just hope I have this many tomatoes next week so I can take some to my family on the Eastern Shore.

Tonight I'm having a soft crab sandwich (Mars had soft crabs for $28 a dozen), tomatoes from the garden and corn I bought from the "Corn Man." A real summertime dinner!!! The Corn Man is a man that has a truck he brings to a point on Sollers Point road near DCC and sells the best corn from the back of his truck. People line up just to buy his corn. If anyone from this area refers to the Corn Man, everyone knows who he is, hence the name Corn Man. He said that this is Silver King corn and that it is sweeter than Silver Queen. And the Corn Man wouldn't lie, would he? We'll see tonight.

Zucchini seem to be slowing down, but part of that could be because I'm cutting back the leaves because they are keeping the light from other plants. I have 4 large ones in the refrigerator right now that I intend to stuff and freeze for later. I've eaten so much squash this summer I feel like it's coming out of my ears. I took some yellow squash to my Bridge group yesterday and I was surprised but they took them all. I was really grateful for that.

The watermelon is coming along and should be ready to be picked sometime within the next week. I'll talk to Mary about when she would like to pick it. I figure she brought the plant, she should get the melon. There is another one that is getting to be a fair size on that vine, but it still has a couple of weeks to go. I don't know what we're going to do about the cantaloupe. Mary tossed a couple that she said had rotted on the vine. I didn't notice any rotting, but I could have overlooked them. The honeydew plant doesn't seem to be doing much. It does have a blossom on it, perhaps it'll start producing later.

The storm we had earlier this week broke a good size limb off our largest eggplant plant but the rest of the plant seems to be doing well. Although, all the eggplants seem to slowed their production, so maybe we won't get too many more from them.

Well, that's all the gardening news for this week. I wonder what the garden will hold for me next week..........................

Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves!!!!

Well, we've been hit by the vegetable thieves. There was a beautiful tomato just sitting on the vine. It was about one day before it would have been ripe enough to pick. When I went back the next day it was gone, as were 2 or 3 others. I called Mary when I got home to see if she had picked it and she said no that she was saving it for me. We have been getting reports of thieves in the area. Generally, when they are caught they give whatever they stole to whoever caught them and they explain their actions by saying they thought that these are community gardens. I don't know of any place where people go in and work for hours in the hot sun and then you can go and help yourself. I don't mind helping someone in need, but I don't like people who feel that they are entitled to help themselves. Even the gardens that the city had the foods went to Our Daily Bread for distribution. Average citizens did not help themselves.

I did take one of my Alarm Pro signs from here at the house and post it down there. I don't know if it will do any good or not, but it might give someone a pause for thought. I also want a private property sign that will remove the excuse of "community gardens".

This watermelon was a real surprise. I was just checking to see if we had any watermelons starting. I was amazed to see this large one. I check the garden each time I go there to see what is growing. This picture is not the best in the world. I put my cellphone on top of it to try to give an idea of the size of the melon. It is pretty well hidden by the leaves of the plant so I don't know if the thieves will get it before we do or not. I hope it tastes better then the cantaloupe I got the other day. I wasn't trying to pick it. I was just trying to check the stem end to see if it was any where near ripe when the stem just snapped. It was really aromatic and my car was full of the smell of cantaloupe. I let it set here at home for about 2 days before I cut it. It didn't have much of a taste at all. I just hope that perhaps it was picked too soon.

Our corn is starting to sprout ears. The silk is still yellow but in some places it is starting to brown up. The eggplants are coming in pretty well. The tomatoes are still green. There are plenty of them but they are green. The peppers remain on the small side. They are California Wonders. I just wonder if we got Bell Peppers if they would have been bigger. We are finally getting blooms on the bean plants but no beans yet. However, the bean plants are reaching out and trying to strangle anything close to them.

As an aside, my topsy turvy tomato plant here at home has 9 tomatoes on it and 3 of them are starting to ripen. The lettuce in my wonder box is doing well. I just prefer romaine lettuce or something with more body than the kind that grew from the seed packet I had.

Well that's the update for now. I wonder if the local paper, The Eagle, would be interested in reporting on the thievery going on in the gardens????

More Storm Damage

Since my last post, we've had numerous storms with varying degrees of severity. When I went to the garden Saturday, it looked like the wind had just pushed the zucchini plant on the end over. I tried to straight it up as much as I could but I don't know how it'll make out. Some corn had also blown over and I tied them up as much as I could. I don't think they were severely damaged and they should be OK. The one corn stalk that blew over last week, however, looks like a lost cause.

We continue to have problems with our favorite beetle. They seem to infested the one tomato plant the most. I think this is because the branches are either on or close to the ground. I've tried to lift them as much as I can but the plant has grown in such a way that it extremely hard to get it off the ground. I sent an email to the U of Md and they said that this particular beetle is very difficult to get rid of because of it immunity to so many insecticides. The Sevin seems to help so I will continue to use it.

I got reports of vegetable thieves in the area. I don't know what we can do about it. I'm thinking of taking a spare Alarm Pro sign that I have and putting that in the garden. Hopefully, the thieves will be dumb enough to think I have the garden alarmed. I also want a to get a private property sign since the one thief said that he thought they were community gardens and anyone could just help themselves---a likely story if you ask me.

Mary and I have discussed investing in some row covers, if they're not too expensive, and that might hide the watermelons and cantaloupes. I seriously think if we don't do something that our watermelons will grow legs and we'll never eat a single one of them.

Yesterday, I staked the last of the tomatoes. I also tied up an eggplant and a pepper plant. I worked from about noon to 3PM. I was so tired when I finished, I could hardly move. The fruit on the tomato plant, the pepper plant and the eggplant were on the ground and there are several eggplants that are just about large enough to pick. I felt that I had to finish and I did. Hopefully, I won't have to spend another day like that there.

Mary has had her son and his family visiting from France and a brother-in-law visiting from out of state, so she has been really busy and not able to do much at the garden or anywhere else for that matter. She has been faithful about doing her share of the watering and we'll be working together in the garden again when her company leaves.

The tomatoes are starting to come in. I got 4 or 5 of them on each of my last two trips. The peppers are also starting to come in but they seem to be small in size. The first few peppers I had seemed to have thin walls. I hope the future ones are fleshier. A cantaloupe or two will soon be ripe enough to pick. For the most part, everything is starting to produce and we should be eating more than squash soon.

Since I last posted, I went back to the garden on Saturday and staked the other two tomato plants in that row. The back row of tomato plants are the tallest and the ones most in need of staking. That row is now all staked and I'll get to the others later.

I did bring home 5 yellow squash plants and 2 peppers yesterday. One of the peppers had a bad spot in it and I felt that it should come off the plant. The other pepper is quite small but solid red. The squash and zucchini plants are getting so large that they are blocking the light from the other plants. I thought about cutting them back but I didn't have anything with me to cut them. I discussed this with Mary when I got back home and she suggested that we cut them and I agreed.

Today, I wanted to cut my grass but it was too wet, so I went to the garden instead. I did cut back a lot of the large squash leaves. This allows the eggplants and the peppers to get more light. I laid the leaves in the pathways. I hope this will help keep the weeds down and possibly develop in something like a compost. At least it won't hurt anything.

We had a storm last night and it helped with the trimming back of the yellow squash by blowing over some of the leaves. It also bent one of the stalks of corn. I tied the corn back up straight. I don't know if it will make it or not.

Today, I also, tied up the one cucumber that was being overrun by the cantaloupe. I tried to put the cantaloupe back into the little fenced area that we have for them, but they keep coming through the netting.

I was talking to a couple today. This is their third year at Stansbury. They had some minor storm damage also. One of their tomato plants had blown over and something happened to one of their pepper plants. I saw that they had watermelon growing and the lady, Carol is her name, said that they planted them in the middle of the lot because the other plants would hide them and keep them from being stolen. Ours are right down at the end of the lot, so I guess we'll lose at least some of them.

I brought home 3 zucchinis and 6 yellow squash today. By necessity, I've been making some dishes using the squash. Last week, I made a stuffed zucchini with ground turkey and spaghetti sauce. It was really good. Today, I made a pie with cottage cheese, yellow squash, zucchini, and tomatoes. That was definitely better than I expected. Either tomorrow or Tuesday, I plan on making zucchini bread using a cake mix. I don't make anything that's difficult. I don't know what vitamins are in squash or tomatoes, but I do know I shouldn't be deficient in them.

In the next couple of days, I hope to get a couple of tomatoes from the garden. We've been getting two or three a week. There are plenty of tomatoes there. We just need them to ripen up and then I'll be in my glory.

BAAAAD News and Good News

I'll start with the bad news first. We had storms go through here last night. When I went to the garden today, I was extremely upset. The one tomato plant had blown over cage and all. One of the stems had a severe split. Others were split or bent. This was especially true of the Beefmaster tomatoes. The other tomatoes didn't sustain as much damage. The Beefmasters are tall and heavy plus the wind was enough to throw them around. I went to the hardware store and bought some tomato stakes, twine and an axe. Then I pounded the stakes into the ground and tied up the plants. I wasn't able to pound the stakes as deeply as I would have liked, but I figure I'll drive them deeper into the ground each time I water. I was only able to do this to about 4 of the plants. It was so hot and I had missed lunch by the time I was working on the fourth stake, I had lost all strenght and had to call it a day. I could barely lift the hatch to pound the stake. I'll take care of the other two plants in that row tomorrow when I go to the garden.

All the tomato plants are full of tomatoes and a lot of them are a pretty good size. This makes them heavy and the cages we had are really too short for them. I told Mary the other day that we needed to get them staked up. That's what percrastination get you.

Here's what the tomatoes looked like after I staked them. I've tied them up so much it looks like they were trying to escape. And I think they were. They had spread all over the place

The good news is we now have little eggplants. In fact, we have 3 baby eggplants. Below is one.

And Cantaloupes!!!

The leaves on the cantaloupe plants have grown so much since Tuesday, that I was having a hard time finding them. On Tueday, I counted 7. Today, I could only find 5. I don't think anything is eating them. I just think that I couldn't find them.

Every thing else looks just fine--none the worse for the storm damage. They are calling for scattered storms tonight again. Well, it's summer time. What can you expect? I hope the tomatoes survive.

Cantaloupes, Cantaloupes, Cantaloupes.

The garden continues to grow each day. Today, I got 6 more squash, a zucchini, a tomato and two very small peppers from the garden.


The squash and zucchini are still taking over the whole place, with the cantaloupe coming in a very close second. I was amazed today. I found a small cantaloupe about the size of a ping pong ball. Then as I looked closer, I found another. Then another, until I counted about 7 cantaloupes in various sizes. I don't know what we're going to do with so many cantaloupes. People are afraid when they see me coming now because they think I'm going to give them more squash. I think I might run out of friends before I run out of squash.

The watermelon plant is really spreading out and the corn is maturing. I hope we don't get the watermelon at the same time as we get the cantaloupe. Or as many watermelons. We'll be over our heads in melons. The cauliflower doesn't look so great, but perhaps that will come into it's own in the fall. Two of the three head lettuce plants look pretty good but the third one looks kind of poor. Lots of tomatoes on the vines, but they seem to ripening one at a time. Hopefully, more will ripen soon. Some of the green ones are getting fairly large. That's when they're the best---nice and big and red.

I still keep a close watch on the eggplants. I haven't seen any blossoms on the ground so perhaps the lime I put on them helped. Of course, our old friend, the Colorado Potato Beetle is still around. I took a jar of water and dish detergent down there today and knocked the two I saw into the jar. I know that's what the man next to us does and he had a chewed up plant but it had a large eggplant on it.

Mary had sent me an email telling me I probably wouldn't have much to harvest today. She was really surprised when I told her what I found there. There's a tomato that should be ripe either tomorrow or Thursday, so I told Mary to take it. I hope she does.

I don't go back until Saturday. I wonder what treasures I find then!!!!

Today's news

I find it hard to believe how much the garden has grown since the beginning of this month.

The zucchini and squash continue to be very prolific. I removed 4 large zucchini and 3 yellow squash today. There promises to be a lot more. I've given them to friends and neighbors. I plan on dropping some off at my cousin Lois's house tomorrow. I've saute the squash, used them in salads and broiled them. I am learning many new ways to cook zucchini. And I still have more. The cantaloupe and squash really know how to take over a garden.

I have to say that I'm disappointed in the peppers. They don't seem to be attaining much size. Mary told me to pick the one of the green ones because she didn't think it was going to get any bigger. I really didn't see any that I thought were ready to be picked regardless of the size.

I still hold hope for the eggplants. The plants certainly look healthy and they have plenty of blossoms, but so far none have developed into eggplants.

My tomato plant in the Topsy Turvy seems to be doing well. I have about 8 tomatoes on it of various sizes, but none large enough to start to ripen. There was a tomato in the garden that probably should be ripe enough to be pick tomorrow. I hope Mary picks it. We have lots of tomatoes on the plants but none of them are really large yet and they are still green. I keep looking for the day when we too many tomatoes for our needs. Don't know if that's ever going to happen.

The watermelon plant is really growing nicely and the green beans are getting bigger everyday. I don't know what I think of the Alabama method of planting the beans next to the corn. I expected the beans to wrap around the corn, but they don't seem to be doing that.

Till next time.

The Harvest is beginning

Above is today's harvest. I don't know if you'll be able to tell or not, but that is a 15 inch ruler that I put in with the vegetables to try to give a sense of the size of things.

This morning when I went to the garden to water and feed the plants. I discovered that the squash elves had decided to put some yellow squash and zucchini in the garden. They were all over the place and more are coming. So I harvested some of the bigger ones. When I got home, I called Mary and told her to be sure to pick some tomorrow when she waters. We are going to be having squash coming out our ears. Good thing Viola send me that zucchini cookbook!!!

You can see that I also harvested some tomatoes too. I don't think its been warm enough for the tomatoes to really take off. I hope that happens soon.

I jealous of the man that has the next lot. His eggplant plant is all chewed up by the infamous Colorado Potato Beetle and he has a fairly decent size eggplant on his. Our eggplant plants are growing nicely, but still no eggplants---just blossoms. The blossoms tend to fall off. I asked Mary to put some fencing around them in case we are knocking them off when we walk by or when we water. My only consolation is that my neighbor doesn't have any eggplants on her plant yet either. Maybe Mary and I still have a chance at getting some on our plants.

All in all the garden is doing well, other than the squash plants and the cantaloupe plants trying to take over the whole place. I was pleased at how well the first watermelon plant is doing---no blooms yet, but the plant is growing nicely. Even though the peppers are producing fruit they don't seem to be growing very tall. I guess it's time for more research on them.

Just an short update

Things are progressing along at the garden. Mary tells me that she harvested a green pepper today because it was starting to get some red streaks in it. I understand that there are a couple of red tomatoes waiting for me tomorrow. I can't wait until the tomatoes really start coming in. I'm getting tired of buying them.

I used the squash from the garden to make a wonderful mixed vegetable dish. I use onions, peppers, garlic, EVOO, yellow squash, eggplant, and tomatoes all saute together. It is wonderful.

I had the nicest surprise today. My friend, Viola, send me a package. I couldn't possibly image what she was sending, but I had a great laugh when I opened the package. It was a Zucchini Cookbook. At least, my friends have faith in me. It is a very thoughtful gift and one that I truly appreciate. Plus now I have some recipes for using the squash (squashes???) in a variety of ways.

Well, until the next harvest or disaster...........

The case of the falling corn

Yesterday morning I went to the garden to water and feed the plants. All the corn we had planted the previous day were lying on the ground, with the exception of one stalk. I staked all the stalks and we'll have to see what happens. I watered and did some weeding. Then I harvested a tomato and a yellow squash. The tomato tasted wonderful!!!!

I also created an inventory of the various plants we have. I want to keep a record of the yield we get so we'll have a better idea of what to plant next year. Since we visited Monticello on Sunday and learned of the meticulous record keeping that Thomas Jefferson did, Mary teased me that I was following in his footsteps. Mary doesn't realize that I am truly a bookkeeper at heart.

That's about all for now. We're just waiting for things to grow and ripen so we can harvest the "bounty" of our garden.

A Harvest!!!!

Mary is very happy that we finally were able to harvest some vegetables. Here you see her holding a tomato, a yellow squash, and a zucchini. To the right is me holding the same harvest and bag of Organic Miracle Gro. Notice the Doo Rag.

Above and to the right is what we expect to harvest tomorrow. The tomatoes are from our Goliath tomato plants. Our Better Boy tomatoes have tomatoes on them but they have not started to ripen.



This morning Mary and I started working at 7AM. We planted additional peppers, eggplants, including a couple of Japanese eggplants, a watermelon, several stalks of corn to replace the ones that didn't make it, a few additional green beans, a couple more tomatoes, and 3 heads of lettuce. I don't think I'm forgetting anything. Tomorrow I plan to take an inventory of what we've planted and hopefully, I'll be able to track our yields so we can do a better job of planning next year. We changed the lattice work that Mary had created for the cucumbers so they resemble cages. I think this is a better solution. We also created some fencing for the cantaloupes to keep the from spreading too far. By the time we had completed all this fencing and planting it was 11AM and the flies had decided that I was a tasty treat, (I hate flies!!!!) so we decided to call it a day. We did put more Sevin on the eggplants because we found another one of those Colorado Potato Beetles. Tomorrow when I water, I'm going to check everything really well and possible but Sevin on everything.

All in all, I think we had a good day. I made Mary promise not to buy any more plants. We'll see how that works out. She'll find a space somewhere to plant them I'm sure. The shower sure felt good when I got home!!!!

Picture of the tomato and zucchini

Our ripening tomato.

Heeeeere's the zucchini.

I took the above pictures this morning. Mary pulled weeds while I watered the plants.

We visited some of the other gardens to see how they planted things. I think we decided that we were going to remove one of the black plastic strips and create a mound in the ground. Then we are going to replace the black plastic and plant something there, probably more corn to replace the plants that don't look too good. I'm not sure but even those may come back. The corn stalk that one of us accidentally broke off, appears to be sending out another shoot, or maybe it just a blade of grass, we can't tell the difference. We'll let the corn go for a couple of weeks to see if it recovers before we pull it up. We decided to this on Tueday, but we can't because we have a lunch date with Nick, Mary and our other friends. We'll have to do it another day.

Mary is still feeling badly about the soap spray. It really isn't that terrible. I think most, if not all, of the plants will recover with no problems. She's calling herself Dr. Kevorkian. Perhaps she'll feel better when the worst of them start to come back. I don't think the few tomato that were sprayed are lost, and the squashes, peppers, etc only have a couple of burnt leaves on them. There is no root damage, so I truly believe that all is well.

We continue to have problems finding Sevin at a reasonable price. Most places have the granules instead of the powder. I sent an email to Bayer to see how to use the granules and if they would be just as effective. We really don't want an insecticide that we have to mix and spray. Mary did find some powdered Sevin at Walmart but they wanted as much for 3lbs as Watson's did for 5lbs. She did try at Watson's but they were sold out. Our problem has been the Colorado Potato Beetle and from what I can find out on the Internet they are prevalent in May. Well, here we are at the end of June, perhaps they are about over with and we won't need any more insecticide.

I also read that eggplants need calcium, so I'm going to see if I can get some lime to put around our plants and that should help them.

I think both Mary and I have a new appreciation of what farmers go through. You think you put a plant in the ground and just wait for it to produce a vegetable. You don't think you have to feed it multivitamins and shoo bugs weird bugs from Colorado away and all that. I hope we don't have a $64.00 Tomato. I hope we at least have two $32.00 ones.

OOPS!!!!

Yesterday I got a call from Mary. She was very quiet and very timid in her telling. We had been told that a good insect repellent could be made by mixing a little dish detergent with some water and spraying it on the plants. So Mary mixed up some "insect repellent" and sprayed the plants Wednesday evening. On Thursday when she visited the garden, apparently this home made insect repellent had burned the plants. To hear Mary tell the tale, the plants were all dying and gasping their last breaths and saying things like "Tell Mama I love her" and going into the light. Well, I did visit the garden last evening and it wasn't as bad as I had prepared myself for. Some leaves are burned and we might lose a plant or two. It looks like we did lose one row of corn, but all in all, I think the most of the plants will survive. It's a good thing that Mary was the one to try this experiment because she does things with a much lighter hand that I do. If I had been the one with the dish soap spray, I don't think any of the plants would survive.

This morning I revisited the garden because I wanted to go for a walk around the pond. The plants are coming along. There are still a couple that may not make it, but we can always replace them. I did notice that one of our tomatoes is starting to color and that the zucchini is getting bigger. I hope we know a lot of people that really like yellow squash. We have 7 squash. plants and there are about 6 to 8 little to medium yellow squash on just about each one of them and more coming. So send us your recipes for yellow squash!!!! I did put some stakes around the eggplants. Mary had erected some lattices for the cucumbers because she said that they looked like they wanted to climb.

This afternoon I going to see if I can find places where we can buy Sevin in larger quantities for a reasonable price. Mary and I each bought a 5lb bag and it is quickly being used up. I dusted today because I saw a beetle on one of the tomato plants and another one on one of the eggplants. I don't know if we are going overboard or not. It's just that Mary and I want to be the ones to eat our crop not some beetle.

Tomorrow, I plan on posting some pictures of the riping tomato and the growing zucchini.

A sunny day!!!! Finally!!!

Mary and I worked in the garden today. Mary filled in some low spots in the ground. I staked the tomatoes. Together we weeded and laid some of that black paper/plastic stuff to keep the weeds down.

The tiny yellow squash are about twice the size they were on Monday. Mary discovered an zucchini that was about 6 or 7 inches long. It was hiding under one of the big zucchini leaves and we had overlooked it before. The tomatoes are appearing. Perhaps this warm weather will help them grow and turn red.

I'm concerned about our eggplants. They are getting beautiful purple flowers on them and then they blooms break off at the stem. I read that not enough water could cause that problem or the lack of pollination. I really don't think the lack of water has been a problem. Not too sure what we can do about the lack of pollination. I also read that they should be staked. I'll do that Saturday.

The sad news for today is that either Mary or I inadvertently broke one of our corn stalks down to the ground. We can now have a moment of mourning for the deceased corn stalk.

This afternoon Mary lightly watered the plants WITH THE MIRACLE GROW. I'm not sure if she trusts me enough yet when I say that we will not over fertilize them and burn them up. But Bravos to Mary for being brave enough to give it a try.

I did move the stakes to include the extra footage that we took to plant the corn. The colored flags now show the world that that portion belongs to the most colorful lot in the whole place.

I will not be blogging tomorrow because Mary and I have a picnic with the Friendly Seniors and will not be working on the garden.

June 21, 2009

The sky as we usually see it. Clouds, clouds and more clouds.

Our 3 cantaloupe plants. So far, only blossoms, no cantaloupes.

We have two peppers so far on our 6 plants. Here is one of them.

There are 3 small yellow squash on the plant above and two on its companion plant.

These 3 pictures are of the tomatoes that are currently on 3 different tomato plants

Above are a couple of different views of the garden that I took today.

Currently our biggest problem is keeping the weeds at bay. The newspaper and straw have helped a great deal but they are not perfect. I did rake away some of the straw today and lay more newspaper under it, after I had dug up the weeds. We have decided that we didn't want to get any more hay because it makes such a mess in the car. I would have put some of the black paper/plastic strips on the area where we have the corn, cabbage and watermelon, but as you can see from the position of the flags, it was too windy for me to attempt by myself. We will add more of the strips if Mary and I can find time to get together. Lately, it seems when one of us is available, the other is busy.

I did plant some green bean seeds today. Someone from Alabama told Mary that down there they plant green beans next to their corn. Apparently, the corn grows faster than the green beans and the green beans use the corn stalks as poles. It's worth a try since this is a learning experience this year. Next year we will be expert farmers and know all the tricks----right!!!!

Since our experience with the spaghetti squash seeds, I tend to be pessimistic about planting any seeds.

I replaced the watermelon plant that died with a pickling cucumber plant. I don't think either Mary or I are planning to make any pickles this year, but the lady at Watson's said that they were very good when you use them as regular cucumbers. And they have very small seeds. We'll see.

I think next year we'll be better able to plan what we would like to plant in this garden. We still have space for more plants but I don't know if we'll use it or not. I would like to have more arugula plants and some lettuce plants but you have to start them early and we did not get an early start.

I don't think I'll have an entry tomorrow unless Mary does something at the garden. My grass is growing like crazy and needs to be mowed. How come my plants don't grow as fast as my grass!!!

On Tuesday, I plant to at least stake the tomato plants that don't have cages. Don't know if I'll be able to do anything else or not.

6/20 another rainy day.

Today's post will be short and sweet. It was raining, AGAIN.

Mary had some running to do today, but, if it was dry enough, I was going to work in the garden. Rumbles of thunder early this AM ended that plan.

Hopefully tomorrow, I will have some pictures and be able to report some progress.

PS--This comment was added about 30 minutes after the above one..........
The rumbles have returned. Does anyone know how to build an ark?????

Althought, I'm very late in starting this blog, I will be attempting to make a record of the garden that Mary and I are cultivating this year. We regretfully neglected to take any pictures in the beginning. This is something I intend to remedy in the future.

The seed (pun intended) for this garden was planted a couple of years ago, when exercising in Stansbury Park, I saw that people had garden plots there. Since the back yard in my house is completely cemented in, I've never had an opportunity to have a vegetable garden in the backyard. So I wanted to see if I could get one of those plots to plant some tomatoes instead of buying them all the time from the Farmers Market. After calling the Baltimore County Department of Parks and Recreation, I was given the number for the Eastfield Recreational Council, which in turn gave me another number to call. Finally I reached someone who could help me. Since I was a newcomer, I had to wait to see if anyone surrendered their lot. I was lucky enough that someone did and I was assigned Lot 91 and I paid my $12.

Well, after I got this lot, someone said something about the rabbits eating up all the plants of someone that had in a lot there. So off to Lowes I go and buy a ton of fencing. Then I realize I need someone to help me put the fence up. I asked a friend of mine if her son could help me. Well, every time we set a date to set the fence up, it rained! As it would happen, I mentioned this to my friend Mary. Mary thought having a garden would be a great idea, so I got a partner and a helper. Wonderful!!!!! We decided against the fencing and went off to Ogos to get flags to go around the perimeter of the 19 X 19 lot. So we now have the most colorful lot in the whole park.

Our next challenge would be to get the ground tilled, since the county waited so long to let us use the lots after they had plowed it. Off we go to HomeDepot to see if we can rent a tiller small enough for us to handle. So we had plans to rent a tiller, until Mary saw someone tilling and was concerned that it would be too much for two old women to attempt. So I decided to see if I could find someone that would till the lot for us. It so happened that I went to the lot that evening and there was a wonderful young man there tilling his lot. I asked him if I could pay him to till my lot too. He was kind enough to say that he would do it for us for nothing. I don't know how we would have gotten it done if it hadn't been for him. I told Mary not to worry about the tilling because I already did it. I let her think that I had tilled the lot by myself for a while but I finally 'fessed up.

After many trips to various garden stores, Walmart, and other assorted places, we got our plants and started planting. After we planted our plants, we laid newspaper on the ground and put hay on top of that to keep the weeds down. We've repeated this several times. Right now we have 11 tomato plants, 6 pepper plants, 3 eggplants, 2 cucumber plants, an arugula plant, 3 cantalope plants, 3 zuchinni plants, about 6 corn plants, 2 cabbage plants, and a watermelon plant. We also have about 6 yellow squash plants due to a miscommunication between Mary and I. Mary bought some yellow squash and I didn't realize it, so I bought some too. So I hope our family and friends like yellow squash. We also have a cilantro plant, a parsley plant and several basil and marigold plants in our garden. Our attempts to grow spaghetti squash from seed did not succeed. We also lost a watermelon plant. Other than those two problems, all seems to be doing well, despite the rains and more rains that we have been experiencing. We actually have some tomatoes on the vine, blooms on the squash, cucumbers, cantalopes, and eggplants. We're happy with the way things are progressing.

All that remains for us to do, is to plant a single cucumber plant, some carrot seeds and some green bean seeds. Since we haven't had too much luck with seeds, I'm not too optimistic about these. We are learning as we go along, so who knows we may have enough carrots to feed an army of Bugs Bunnies. We need to continue to weed and fight off the insects. Mary and I have armed ourselves with Sevin and soapy water to fight this pests and we are pulling weeds all the time. The paper/straw helps a good bit, but you still have weeds.

Hopefully, we will have a bountiful harvest later this year. I will looking to purchase little life jackets for our plants if the rains continue. I will take some pictures from time to time and report our progress as time goes on.