Gardening, warts and all

We've been spending more and more time out at the big family garden recently.  It's mostly my Dad's garden, but all of us like to help out so we can reap the rewards!

Rewards that have already started coming, like fresh green onions and, now, new potatoes.  There is something fun and almost addictive about digging potatoes.  Your best luck comes underneath the biggest plants, the ones that have a sprinkling of pointy purple blooms.

For the most part, potato digging is done blindly, with one or both hands buried in the dirt at the base of the plant, feeling for potatoes.  Some of them are just under the surface.  Others are deep enough I am buried up to my wrists in the soft sandy soil.  You have to determine by feel if the potato is big enough to pluck up or if it needs a few more days to grow.  Because of their roundness there is hardly any way to bring them up except for getting your fingers underneath and then bringing your hand up like a scoop.

On our first potato digging this year I was surprised to come across a potato so soft it was nearly mushy.  Why would this potato have rotted under what appeared to be a perfectly healthy plant?  I scooped and pulled, working the lump up to the surface, perplexed the whole time about what exactly I was feeling.  With my other hand I pulled back the lowest leaves of the plant and squinted at the dirt covered lump.  Was that a mushroom?  

And then the sandy lump blinked.

It was a toad!  A knotty brown toad just the size of a ripe potato, and completely covered in sand.  I laughed at my find, thankful I hadn't given it a good, hard squeeze!  After the boys all had a turn inspecting our unearthed amphibian we returned him to his home under the potato plant.  I hope he eats all those beetles I keep seeing there!

Getting ready to leave the garden recently, we handed our first broccoli harvest to Brooklyn for her to hold while we gathered up and finished up.  Next thing we knew, there wasn't much left to the broccoli.  We all agreed it was a good thing we didn't ask her to hold a potato!

Have you EVER?

I have never!

Bumps & warts

I believe my exact words were, "That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen."


To which he replied, "It looks like it could be a monster on Veggie Tales."

It was even uglier and fatter before it sat in the sun and shriveled for two days. 

Thankfully, most of what we are getting from the garden is much more attractive and edible. 

What do you think?  Can you picture it terrorizing Bumblyburg?  Have you eaten any garden-fresh goodness yet this summer?

From the garden

I haven't posted about the garden lately, so I thought I would update, if for no other reason than my own documentation and comparison this time next year!

The garden looks good in a lot of ways, but the heat is really taking its toll. We have had almost 2 weeks now of 95-100 degree days.

Most of the corn is well over 6 feet tall, and most of the stalks are growing 2 ears each!

The squash and zucchini are covered in blossoms, but the squash gets about as big as my thumb and then shrivels. At least that is what happened to the first two to get that big. We'll see what happens to all of these:
The zucchini isn't producing as many veggies, but the few that are there are faring better than the squash. (As in: they aren't dying before getting big enough to eat!)

The cucumber vines are also loaded with blossoms, but I think it is too hot for them to produce any cucumbers. :(

The cantaloupe plants look healthy enough, so we'll see what happens next, and the bell peppers look like they are growing ok. They are a little bigger than golf balls now, so I hope they will continue on and get decently big.

The corn is definitely the healthiest looking thing right now. We picked our first ears yesterday!
We also picked two zucchini.
And then there are my favorites so far, the tomatoes.

First, there were two:
Then there were four, and then 6, and now I have 20 little tomatoes of varying ripeness just waiting to be eaten. I am picking them very early to keep them away from the birds, from which we have only had a little bit of trouble so far.

So, with our little beginning of a harvest we were able to have a fun celebratory supper tonight:

Grilled chicken, corn on the cob, sauteed zucchini, and ice cold tomatoes! We also had a blessed relief from the intense heat today, making it bearable for the grill-master to get outside and do his thing! And of course, for me to circle the garden a couple of times just to check on things. ;)

This post is linking to The Peterson Clan for a garden update.

Garden Update

I am really pleased with this week's update, since everything is growing great!
However, I am embarrassed to show the following pictures... our garden is a muddy, weed-filled mess!

Never-the-less... here goes....

The corn:
We have 21 plants (I think), with one half planted a couple of weeks after the first set.  Except for the fire ants taking over the area surrounding one on the end, there are no problems!

The Lettuce:
I'm so glad the weather is staying mild and giving our lettuce a chance to make it.  I planted it a little late.  Other than being loaded with weeds, it seems to be doing well.  
I started to photo-shop them out, but I thought that would be cheating.  :) 
And since I plan on attacking them with my hoe and my pincher grasp as soon as the garden mud dries out enough to set foot in, I thought, "why remove them twice?"  

The tomatoes:
Our tomatoes have done fabulously since setting them out a couple of weeks ago.  I'm so happy!
And it looks like it is time to remove the cut-worm-prevention-cups from most of them.

The Marigolds:
Planted these around the tomatoes to ward off bugs.  Looks like it may be working!  :)

The Cayenne Peppers:
These 2 pepper plants were a gift from my Dad, and it looks like they will be the first thing edible to come out of the garden.  I don't know.... it could be a race between them and the lettuce.

The Bell Peppers:
My 6 bell pepper plants are growing like gang-busters, but something is after them.  Apparently they are too far from the marigolds!  (I'm kidding.  I think.)  Any help here would be appreciated.  I love my bell pepper plants.

Oops!  I forgot to take a picture of the eggplant!  I put out 6, but I think only 4 are going to make it.  Not sure what happened to the other two.  They were small to begin with, so it may have been the heavy rains.  Or it could be whatever is after my bell peppers, since they are neighbors in the garden.

Also not pictured this week (because there is nothing but mud to take a picture of at this point), I planted cucumber, squash, zucchini, and - just for fun - pole beans at the beginning of this week.

My only hope is that the 2-3 inches of rain after that hasn't hurt them!

We also set out some petunias for the pots on the front porch and I'm going to try begonias in a very moist shady area we haven't had much luck with before.

To see how and what others are growing, check in with:

The Peterson Clan

and

Heart of the Matter's Friday Meme

Garden Club Friday

Time to check on how the little garden is coming along!

The tomato plants continue to grow, and are getting their new, more tomato-looking leaves.  I lost four plants to my "little helper".... he picked them right out when I wasn't watching.  In his defense, I hadn't warned him not to, and he certainly hasn't touched them since!  :)

Anyway, I don't know if you can tell in the picture or not, but the three little babies on the front right are the re-plants of the ones that had a premature uprooting.  The fourth is just appearing on the second row, far left.
And even though I am a little behind for our area, I am happy to finally see my lettuce!
The lettuce was really a fun afterthought, so I don't care nearly as much about it as I do the....

CORN!!  It is up!!!

Finally!  
I can count about half of what I planted, and I'm sure the other half is not far behind.

But get this:  we have big thunderstorms predicted to come through this afternoon and tonight..... including hail!  I'm afraid my poor little corn plants are going to get pelted!  It makes me kind of glad for the half still hiding out safely beneath the dirt!

You can go here to visit other Garden Club posts for this week.

How does your garden grow?

Even though I have only had a garden once or twice in my married life, having a vegetable garden goes way back in my family.

My Dad grew one just about every year when I was growing up. His mother and grandmother always had big prolific gardens. And then on my mom's side, my PawPaw (her Dad) keeps up 2 gardens each year. And both of my great-grandmothers on that side were big gardeners as well.

Didn't mean to get off on my gardening genealogy there. Just wanted to say: growing a garden runs in the family.

It's been a few years since we've had one at our house, but plans are coming right along this year and I'm so excited! It is even better this year than before, because I feel like Greg is (almost) as into it as I am, so it's OUR garden, not just mine. :)

He has definitely been putting some muscle into this year. I posted here about him doing the beginning dirt work on his birthday last month.

Then a couple of weeks ago he borrowed PawPaw's tiller (and a few lessons to go with it) and got all our dirt nice and soft and into rows.

My job has been all the planning and purchasing.

Whether it's good or bad I'm not sure, but tend to be #1 - very sentimental, and #2 easily influenced. So, when I read a book this winter about the big bad farmers and companies having a monopoly on the seed market with their genetically engineered, blahblahblahblahblah, I instantly loved this company:

Seed Savers Exchange

From their catalog: "Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to conserving and promoting heirloom vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers."

I just thought that was too cool and was hooked. It was so much fun poring over the catalog and reading the descriptions of all the different vegetables!

From them I ordered seed packets of zucchini, yellow squash, cucumber, bell pepper, eggplant, corn, and 3 varieties of tomatoes.

Last Saturday I started the tomatoes, peppers & eggplant in the little Jiffy peat starter kit. I also threw in a couple of basil seeds since I already had them. We'll see how that goes.

Here is how things are looking one week later:
This past Monday I put out some lettuce seed that I already had, plus the corn. And then Tuesday, it rained. And Wednesday. And Thursday. And Friday.

So.... not sure what is going to come of my corn and lettuce. Especially the lettuce! I'm afraid it is all washed away! But starting Monday we're supposed to have sunny highs in the 70s. I'm hoping things will start popping right up.

I know my little indoor seedlings could sure use some sun. The little things are starting to look kind of pitiful!

To check on other gardeners or to post your own Garden Club report, go visit the Peterson Clan!