by Jess
21. May 2011 13:10
After much success with last year’s garden, I decided to double my chances and create another box. I took what I learned from last year…
- Peppers love the heat
- You only need one or two cucumber plants
- Separate the vine-type veggies – they overtake others
- Water, water, water
…and did the following:
- Garden box 1 – cucumber, squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, and jumbo jalapeño
- Garden box 2 – tomato, green bell pepper, red bell pepper, banana pepper, regular jalapeño, and onions
So far so good, but the lack of sun does not help. The peppers are not nearly as big as they were last year. Hopefully, that will turn around soon. The squash plant (the big one in box 1) is the most surprising. Last year, the cucumber took over and this year appears to be the year of the squash. I would have never known I would enjoy gardening so much.
Garden Box 1 |
Garden Box 2 |
by Jess
8. May 2010 19:14
So this year, I planted a garden. I have been waiting for the day I could have one and it has finally arrived. I started it a little over five weeks ago. It took a few weekends to dig, level (to a point), and get the soil somewhat right. The next step was to test the soil and sun exposure (see my previous post on EasyBloom). And then, what do I plant? I want herbs, vegetables, fruit…so many choices. I finally narrowed it down to vegetables I knew we use a lot of - onions, bell peppers, cucumbers, jalepenos, and banana peppers. I threw in a canteloupe plant too.
The first couple of weeks the peppers and cucumbers all looked promising. The onions were not very healthy to begin with (as I later found out visiting Lowe’s one day), they had brown ends. I did not have much hope for them. The canteloupe kind of stayed the same.
The next couple of weeks, showed extreme growth thanks to mother nature. I learned you can not water them too much. Water is their drug. Almost everything was looking quite healthy – the onions even were beginning to turn around. The canteloupe, still the same and the leaves were turning yellow. Not a good sign.
And that brings us to this weekend, week five. The bell peppers are blooming (each bloom becomes a bell pepper), the onions are now over 12 inches tall, the cucumbers are taking over their side of the garden with mini cucumbers in sight, and the other peppers are still green and growing, but no blooms. The canteloupe is no longer (or the cucumber is hiding it).
I have become an obsessive gardner weeding every other day, watering every evening after work, looking at each plant in hopes of seeing a bloom… I feel like these little guys have become part of my family. (ha!) Most of them have a 70 day gestation period. I can’t wait to see what the next couple of weeks bring. Check back for my next update.
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