Friday, July 12, 2013

Garden: week 9

Have I really had this garden for over two months now?  My goodness!  Its becoming quite the ride.  We are pretty well into harvest time, I've picked 9 cucumbers in the last 2 days (eating one with my lunch today---YUM!!!!  Waaaaay better than grocery store ones!)

Well, lets get into the pictures of the garden itself, then we'll see what today's harvest was like, and then notes to self.  
Here is looking at the watermelon plants (bottom) and giant tomato plants (still green tomatoes, haven't seen any color yet).  Also, saw a baby watermelon, it was about an inch big.  Awww....

Here are the peas and carrots.  You can see the two spots I stood in among the peas. :)  I did a little bit of weeding on the right of the carrots.
Most of my peas were big and beefy size, I blame the wasps, hornets, gnats and all the other stupid bugs around here.  I am, of course, deterred by the presence of these insects which is why I haven't spent more time in the garden the whole time I've had it.  

On the left side is the cucumber plant then the potato plants and piles of weeds and lettuce.
HOLY CRAP the cucumber plant is huge!  I don't know what I'm going to do with all of them.  Well, I had a nice giant row of lettuce that was doing some funny things, but I decided to be realistic and cut it all down.  In all honesty, I'm not going to eat it, it wasn't very good, not my type of lettuce and it was kind of bugging me.  These are among the piles of weeds you are seeing at the bottom-most part of the garden.  Also, perhaps, you notice the huge hole/piled up dirt in the middle right side of the picture?  I sacrificed a potato plant to see how big the potatoes were and see how hard it was to harvest them.  I didn't go very deep, but I got probably 5 good sized potatoes, I wonder how deep they go!  I need to find a better way of messing up the dirt so it doesn't damage the potatoes.  My dad used to use a pitchfork, so maybe I'll try that.  I really need to find out how deeply they grow so that I pick most of them.

Here are the chicks & hens, and my 2 strawberry plants.

Here are the raspberry plants...one of them didn't fair as well as the other.


On to today's harvest!!!  
My potatoes...White Kennebuk potatoes...They are pretty decent size! :) Might have 'em for dinner!
 Here they are washed...

PEAS PLEASE!!!

...and carrots...(they still require a bit more time)

The cucumbers I picked this morning!!!

And, the peas and carrots in the sink...resting and rinsing off in cool water.
Yay!!!  Doing pretty good, it feels really neat to provide some of my own food to myself.  It feels really fulfilling!

However, I do still have...
Notes to self:
-Peas grew to be about 3 feet "tall," please trellis them next time.
-Once again, space things out more, things grow super duper well here.  
-Thin the carrots like you should.
-Remember that a mix of vanilla and water makes a good repellent for the stupid beeping gnats.  
-Garden first thing in the morning, the wasps/hornets (and other bugs I suppose) feel less active.  
-Weed properly.  
-Don't plant lettuce, your not going to eat it.  
-Don't plant onions, you probably won't eat them either.  
-Have more plans for the cucumbers or know more people to give them to.  

Good day today!  Finishing my lunch, then off to the outside to brace up my new set of shelves and paint it white.  Don't worry...I'm going to post about it next probably. :)
xoxo

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